


Speaking of Which

by Emeraldsnows



Series: Colloquialisms [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Young Avengers
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Kid Fic, M/M, SHIELD Husbands, Slow Build, Super Husbands
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-04
Updated: 2014-12-15
Packaged: 2018-01-14 13:41:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 45,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1268500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emeraldsnows/pseuds/Emeraldsnows
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It starts when Clint brings a dog home to Avengers tower.<br/>It's been hit by a car and has three broken ribs, a shattered pelvis, a broken leg, and he's missing an eye.<br/>Clint names him Lucky.<br/>Because Clint.</p><p>It leads to a series of practical jokes, pining, team bonding, new relationships, a box of puppies, and a kid.</p><p>It ends with a wedding.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Lucky

**Author's Note:**

> This is a completely unrepentant fluff piece based on a conversation a friend of mine and I had at too early in the morning. Each chapter is centered around the messages we sent each other and will be posted in the notes before each chapter, just so you all get some of the context of the chapter.  
> And because I'm damn hilarious at 3 am.
> 
> It's gonna start Shield Husbands and through a long twisted route get to Super husbands. I promise. Eventually.
> 
> Prompt:  
> So Clint brings a dog home to Avengers tower
> 
> It's been hit by a car and has three broken ribs, a shattered pelvis, a broken leg, and he's missing an eye
> 
> Clint names him lucky
> 
> becuase clint

Clint was only supposed to go out for beer and pop-tarts.

 

He came back with a black eye, a broken nose, and a vet bill for one very mangy dog. One day Phil might stop being surprised by the kind of trouble Clint could get into between Avengers tower and the sidewalk across the street. Clint seemed to like challenging him every time he stepped out the front door.

 

Phil should probably be more surprised Clint managed to get the dog back from the vet in one piece. He found he was more concerned with keeping the stinking animal out of their shared apartment.

 

“No,” he said, without even looking up from his laptop.

 

The guilty shuffling Clint was making near the front door stopped. “You know, this is why the baby agents are all afraid of you.”

 

“They should be,” Phil responded. “I can smell the dog from here, it is not staying here.”

 

“Don’t listen to him, Lucky, he doesn’t mean it,” Clint said to the dog and Phil _had_ to look up then. The look of complete, resigned incredulity was only ever effective when Clint could see it and cringe properly. Which he did as soon as he appeared in the living room, the dog following loyally behind.

 

It had a bandages wrapped around its chest, three different legs, and it’s tail. The cone wrapped around its neck made its ears flop forward at odd angles.

 

“You named it Lucky.” Phil didn’t even bother to hide the disbelief in his voice.

 

“Yeah,” Clint responded, scratching the back of his head.

 

“He was thrown into oncoming traffic, broke two ribs, shattered his pelvis, and lost an eye,” Phil pointed out.

 

“He lived?” Clint grinned sheepishly, shrugging his shoulders.

 

Phil actually rolled his eyes, which was something he usually saved for Clint’s especially dumb exploits. This barely registered as such but it still counted.

 

“Arrow was a bit too on the nose,” Clint said, making his way to Phil’s armchair. He leaned down and Phil turned his face up to meet him in the middle. Clint cupped his jaw, thumb brushing his cheek as he tried to prolong the kiss. Phil let him get away with it for a few more minutes before drawing back and looking Clint in the eyes.

 

“He’s not staying here,” Phil restated.

 

Clint frowned, almost pouted in a way that could almost be called endearing on anyone else. On Clint it only ever meant trouble.

 

“Ask Rogers,” Phil suggested before Clint could open his mouth to protest.

 

“Stark already said no,” Clint said simply.

 

Phil raised an eyebrow.

 

“I am three months away from cashing in on that betting pool,” Clint explained. “I’m not going to risk setting them back by introducing a dog one of them doesn’t want. I need Steve to focus and Tony to stop pulling his pigtails so they can figure out their god damn sexual tension.”

 

“And if I told you keeping the dog here was going to cause you personal sexual tension?” Phil threatened.

 

“ _Phil_ ,” Clint whined. He planted himself firmly on the armrest of the chair, pressing himself against Phil’s side. “Come on, he saved my life.”

 

Phil continued to frown in response. The dog, as if seeking to win Phil over, limped rather pathetically over to him and tried to place his head in his lap. Phil found himself far too concerned with keeping smelly, mangy dog drool off his suit pants and laptop to notice the mischievous glint in Clint’s eyes.

 

“Besides, I think you owe me,” Clint said, and Phil froze, knowing exactly where the conversation was heading. Clint took the opportunity to remove the laptop from Phil’s hands, placing it aside as the dog plopped his head on Phil’s leg. Phil could feel the drool soaking through his pants and grimaced.

 

“After all,” Clint continued, reaching down to scratch behind the dog’s ear. “You did lie about being dead for almost a year.”

 

“How is it lying when I was supposed to be dead?” Phil asked.

 

Clint grinned and smacked a sloppy kiss onto Phil’s forehead. “Lying by omission is still lying. Pretending to be dead is no excuse not to call once in a while.”

 

“You’re never going to let that go, are you?” Phil asked with a sigh.

 

“Not until my next big fuck up, at least.” Clint smiled and Phil pulled him down by the collar of his shirt for another longer kiss.

 

The dog wagged his tail, thumping it against the leg of the coffee table.

 

“The dog still isn’t staying here,” Phil murmured against Clint’s lips as he accepted the archer fully into his lap.


	2. Dumpsters

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's 4:49 am on Saturday where I am which totally counts as Friday so here's the next chapter. 
> 
> Prompt:  
> the dog isn't house broken, shits every where (has worms), smells like the dumpsters tony and clint tend to wake up in after bad missions/wild party nights, and chews through the entirety of tony's leather shoe collection

Lucky, as it turned out, was not house broken by any stretch of the imagination. He also seemed to have worms, much to Clint’s dismay when he woke up in the morning to a pile of nasty waiting just outside the bedroom door. Lucky sat in the living room, tail wagging proudly.

 

Phil gave the dog a less than impressed look on his way out of the bedroom.

 

“He’s not staying here until he smells better,” Phil said simply. Clint bit the inside of his lip to keep from smiling smugly and kept his head down as he made coffee. His negotiation in the bedroom had been as successful as it felt. Phil gave Clint a quick goodbye kiss, grabbing the thermos of coffee Clint had ready for him. With a last glare at the dog, still happily wagging his tail in the kitchen, Phil left to deal with the headache that was work and dealing with baby agents.

 

“Told you I’d get him on our side,” Clint said to the dog. Lucky cocked his head to the side.

 

Five minutes later, Clint had to remind himself he actually did like the dog as he went about cleaning up the mess in the hall. Lucky looked far too smug and Clint did his best not to be proud of that.

 

“Phil will skin you alive if you pee on the carpet,” Clint warned. He decided to lay newspaper down in a few strategic corners of the apartment just in case Lucky got any bright ideas.

 

Clint couldn’t argue that the dog did absolutely reek. Lucky smelled like the dumpsters Clint and Tony woke up in after a particularly hard mission. Or a few times after a night of hard partying. Or both, that one time after that one time in Monaco. The point being, Clint had woken up in a fair number of dumpsters and knew exactly what they smelled like and that is not pathetic at all, thank you very much.

 

Lucky almost smelled worse than that wonderful bouquet of booze and cigarettes and mostly rotten food.

 

“Come on, Lucky,” Clint said, heading for the bathroom. “I’ll take off the cone of shame for a few minutes if you let me bathe you.”

 

Lucky followed him good-naturedly. He didn’t even put up a struggle when Clint herded him into the shower, turning the water on and shutting the door. He sat under the spray of warm water, his tongue lolling out of his mouth as what looked like years of dirt started oozing off of him.

 

“Good boy,” Clint encouraged. He reached into the shower to remove the cone from around the dog’s neck. His guard was down, he didn’t even think about trying to block the door as he unsnapped the collar.

 

Lucky lunged past him, knocking Clint onto his ass and streaking out of the bathroom.

 

“Shit!” Clint cursed, scrambling to his feet to chase after the dog. There was enough water and dirt left in the hallway that Clint nearly slipped face first onto the hardwood floor in his rush to stop Lucky from making an ungodly mess.

 

He was far too late by the time he rounded the corner into the living room.

 

Lucky was standing on the coffee table, getting muddy paw prints all over the old files Phil had left behind. Clint inched forward slowly, holding out his hands to show he wasn’t a threat.

 

“Hey, Lucky,” he said softly, trying not to spook the dog. “Hey, boy, come here.”

 

Lucky cocked his head and Clint could see the rest of his muscles tense in preparation to-

 

“Oh god, please don’t-“

 

Clint lunged.

 

Lucky gave an almighty shake from his head all the way down to his rump.

 

“-shake,” Clint finished lamely. Lucky wagged his tail, flicking dirty water around.

 

The resulting spray landed everywhere. The grey couch, Phil’s brown leather armchair, the nice flat screen TV, the bookshelf and everything on it, the cream colored carpet. Even Clint was completely drenched. The off brown water smelled so much worse than a dumpster because nothing smells anywhere close to good with the addition of the stench of wet dog.

 

“I’ve changed my mind,” Clint said, wiping his face with his sleeve. “I don’t like you anymore.”

 

Lucky continued to wag his tail.

 

The front door beeping caught Lucky’s attention, his ears perking forward and his tail stilling.

 

“No, bad dog, stay!”

 

Clint’s commands went completely ignored as Lucky leapt off the coffee table and dashed toward the opening door.

 

“Stop the dog!” Clint shouted, once again chasing after Lucky.

 

Steve blinked in confusion, propping the door wide enough for Lucky to squeeze out.

 

“Dammit,” Clint muttered.

 

“Sorry,” Steve apologized, looking out into the hall. Clint stopped in the doorway, glaring at the muddy path Lucky left in his wake.

 

“I didn’t know you had a dog,” Steve said.

 

Brought him home last night,” Clint explained, not looking up. “He stinks, so I was trying to give him a bath and he got loose.”

 

“Ah,” Steve commented, glancing around Clint at the disaster that was the living room. “Do you want some help?”

 

“He’s a dog, it’s not like he can leave this floor,” Clint said with a shrug.

 

“Sirs,” Jarvis chimed from above. “It would appear the dog is in the elevator on its way up to the executive floor.”

 

“How the fuck-“ Clint started, exasperated. “You know what, I don’t even want to know. Let him out on the common floor, J?”

 

“Of course, sir.”

 

“Still wanna help?” Clint asked Steve, making his way towards the stairs.

 

The communal floor used by all of the Avengers was three floors above Clint’s apartment. It had a large, well-stocked kitchen for the weekly team bonding dinner nights (even though they ordered out nearly 80% of the time).

 

A broken ping-pong table was propped up against a wall next to the foozeball table they had yet to completely destroy (though between Steve and Thor’s super strength, Clint gave it about a month). The remains of numerous board games were scattered on the shelves like trophies to the Avengers’ impatience (which is exactly what Tony told Pepper they were every time she insisted he clean up).

 

A giant TV took up most of the wall opposite the kitchen, an excellent sound system crammed into the remaining space. Two very large and ridiculously comfortable couches circled the equally large coffee table set in front of the TV. A pile of beanbags, pillows, and blankets arranged in a nest near one of the three armchairs sat as testament to where Clint had spent the last movie night.

 

And curled up in Steve’s usual armchair sat Lucky in all his wet, smelly glory.

 

“Really, dog?” Clint stood over the dog, frowning. Lucky glanced up at him, tail thumping slowly against the arm of the chair, tongue licking out at Clint’s hand. “You’re not cute, get out of the chair.”

 

“Where did you get a dog?” Steve asked.

 

“He saved me from a group of tracksuit vamps,” Clint said.

 

Steve raised an eyebrow at him.

 

Clint shrugged. “It’s what they called themselves.”

 

That probably wasn’t true. They’d spoken mostly in very heavy Ukrainian or something accents; he’d barely understood them around their consistent use of “yo” as periods for every sentence.

 

Steve stopped giving him that judgmental look long enough to reach out and pet Lucky.

 

Lucky let loose a very loud growl, hackles raised and teeth bared.

 

Steve drew his hand back, face immediately contorting into that kicked puppy look he always got when he felt betrayed.

 

“Don’t be a douche, Lucky,” Clint said, scratching behind the dog’s ear.

 

Lucky continued to glare at Steve.

 

.:.

 

When Tony wandered into the kitchen in search of leftover Chinese food, he found Steve sitting on the couch, knees drawn up to his chest and arms wrapped around them. He was staring blankly at his armchair instead of sitting in it, which was probably explained by the dark brown stain in the seat. Tony raised his eyebrows at Steve’s muttering.

 

“-didn’t do anything to him, don’t know why he felt he needed to bite.”

 

“Everything ok over there, Capsicle?” Tony asked, sticking his head in the fridge.

 

“Barton’s dog tried to bite me,” Steve said.

 

Tony popped back up with a carton of what turned out to be kung pao chicken.

 

“So that’s why it smells like dumpster in here,” Tony commented, grabbing a fork from a drawer and stabbing into the chicken. “So what did you do, step on it?”

 

“I just tried to pet it!” Steve exclaimed, looking up at Tony with a face that was somehow equal parts kicked puppy and crazed.

 

“Sounds like you had it coming,” Tony said around his mouthful of chicken.

 

“I think the dog hates me,” Steve stated. He turned back to his muttering and staring.

 

Tony did his very best not to chuckle. Which means he all but laughed loudly.

 

Of course Steve didn’t how to deal with someone hating him (except for like Nazis but they were assholes anyway so it didn’t really count). Tony was more than an expert on people hating him and it was really too adorable watching Steve have some sort of mental break down. Over a damn dog.

 

“Congrats on your first unpopular opinion,” Tony snickered, giving Steve a pat on the head before heading back to his workshop.

 

.:.

 

Coulson returned home at 9:00 pm to a living room completely covered in mud stains and a bathroom that was very nearly flooded. The dog was sitting in the shower, tail wagging happily as it very meticulously ripped apart a leather shoe. Clint was slumped against the wall and completely soaked through.

 

He flopped his head to the side, looking up at Phil with a completely exhausted sigh. “I don’t know where he got it, but I’m pretty sure the shoe is Stark’s.”

 

Phil shook his head and leaned down to give Clint a kiss.

 

“The dog still stinks.”


	3. Vents

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm aware this is really late. Work got in the way. I'm going to try to get some stuff written this weekend so I'll be updating on time for net weeks double updates :)  
> And there may be the barest beginnings or whispers of a plot in here somewhere...
> 
> Prompt:  
> Nat has the smelly thing trained but good. Sit, stay, roll over, play dead, fetch
> 
> the best trick she's taught it is to track down wherever clint is hiding in the vents

Clint was sulking on his back in one of the air ducts. Despite numerous bedroom negotiations, he had yet to convince Coulson to let Lucky stay in their apartment. It wasn’t the dog’s fault he still smelled even after three baths with various scented shampoos. But Phil was completely adamant so Lucky was banned to the common room and Clint was sulking in his favorite vent.

 

The vents in Stark’s Tower were some of the best Clint had ever crawled through. They were extensive, wide, and presented a great challenge to keep Clint busy. And they were _everywhere_. Clint could easily spy on every member of Stark’s staff from the front lobby all the way up to the R &D floors just below the Avengers’ personal floors. Not even the Avenger’s personal rooms were safe. He rarely used the vents for anything too evil or invasive (the occasional afternoon spent gathering blackmail was not evil, just great foresight). He was entirely convinced Jarvis would rat him out to Coulson if he did it too often. Clint didn’t want to lose his favorite hiding places.

 

Eager barking drew Clint out of his sulk. He frowned in confusion. He was pretty sure he’d settled down in the vent over the hall outside of Thor’s room. Which was below the communal floor. Which meant there was no way Lucky could be there. Unless the damn dog had somehow stumbled into the elevator again. Clint flipped over onto his stomach, ready to pop his head out of the nearby grate to investigate.

 

The sound of softly spoken Russian made Clint freeze. Apparently Natasha was back from her recent recon mission. And if she was looking for him, that could mean one of two things. Either the mission wasn’t as successful as it could have been for Natasha (which was still damn near perfect for anyone else) or her debrief had pissed her off. Which was very likely given Coulson had yet to be reinstated as her handler. Either way, Clint was about to be dragged down to the gym so she could beat six kinds of crap out of him. Clint could sympathize with Steve’s punching bags.

 

So long as he stayed very, very still, she wouldn’t be able to track him down. And that plan was going perfectly until Lucky barked again.

 

“Don’t make me crawl in after you, Barton,” Natasha threatened, directly below him. Clint swore under his breath as he army crawled to the grate.

 

“How?” he asked, unscrewing the grate and moving it to the side. He stuck his head out of the hole.

 

Natasha raised a graceful eyebrow at him. Her arms were crossed beneath her breasts and her entire posture said “Do you really need to ask?” Sitting next to her, Lucky panted away happily, his tail wagging a mile a minute. He looed far too pleased with himself given how especially mangy he looked. His fur was still a dingy brown except for patches of yellow hidden between odd clumps where Clint hadn’t been able to wash the shampoo out properly. He also had what looked like a pine tree air freshener tied to his collar.

 

“Your new friend found you for me,” Natasha said. She reached down and patted Lucky’s head.

 

“There is no way you trained him to track me down,” Clint said. “How long have you been back?”

 

“’Bout an hour,” she answered with a shrug. “He’s a fairly good listener.”

 

“Bullshit.” Clint slid out of the vent head first, flipping midair to land on his feet in front of her. “I’ve had him for three days and I can’t even get him to sit.”

 

“Sobaka,” Natasha said sharply, glancing down at Lucky. The dog immediately snapped to attention, eyes on her, tail held perfectly still.

 

She gave a command in Russian and Lucky walked toward the end of the hall. Halfway there, Natasha gave another command and Lucky turned back toward them. Another command and he returned, sitting obediently at Natasha’s feet. She got him to shake with both paws, roll over, chase his tail, and even sneeze.

 

Clint blinked at her. “An hour?”

 

Natasha nodded.

 

“Uh-huh and the reason you’re using fruit as your command words?”

 

She smirked. “Stark won’t be able to figure out and it will drive him crazier.”

 

Clint snorted. “I shouldn’t be so surprised you’re using my dog for evil.”

 

Natasha smiled and looped her arm through his, squeezing it against her side tight enough to bruise. “So now that I’ve found you, care to join me for a few rounds in the gym?”

 

It wasn’t really a question and Clint didn’t really try not to grimace.

 

.:.

 

Natasha always treated Clint to dinner after landing him on his back more than a dozen times in a row. He usually dragged her to a random dive bar, one they hadn’t ever been to before, and ordered every single deep fried entrée. Natasha ordered a salad every time, which she usually ignored in favor of helping Clint clog his arteries. She’d never explained that particular quirk to him in all the years they’d known each other but there were usually a few pieces of it that made for great ammunition. He had way too much fun chucking baby tomatoes into the beer glasses of drunk patrons across the bar.

 

“So my bruised tailbone tells me things didn’t go so well,” Clint said through a mouthful of chili fries.

 

Natasha ate her bite of potato skin very slowly before answering. “I was unable to complete my assignment.”

 

Clint very nearly choked. He coughed heavily, trying to dislodge the fry he’d inhaled in his shock. Natasha thumped him a little too hard on the back. After successfully managing to swallow down half his beer, Clint gaped at her. “What?”

 

Natasha just shrugged. “We’re going to revisit the problem with a different team some time soon. But this time around I was careless and things got away from me.”

 

Which meant her target had escaped and she had been unable to track him down again. That hade _never_ happened, not since she joined SHIELD and spent every mission proving she was still on their side.

 

“Damn,” Clint swore.

 

Natasha tossed her hair over her shoulder. “It won’t happen again. Now tell me how you convinced Coulson to let you keep a dog.”

 

Clint gladly let her change the topic onto much lighter things. Later, she would find ways to beat herself up over the failure. Until then, Clint was going to ply her with beer, greasy bar food, and fill her in on the whole Lucky situation.

 

.:.

 

Clint woke up the next morning to a pounding headache and the sadly familiar stench of dumpster. He groaned, instantly wished he hadn’t. He’d probably tried to drink along with Natasha. Again. And she was evil so of course she did nothing to stop him and let him wander off. Which meant another night in a dumpster.

 

He should probably consider changing his mailing address at this point.

 

Loud barking from outside the dumpster somehow managed to echo inside of it. Clint’s head felt like it was splitting open with each jarringly loud noise. He groaned again and hauled himself up to peer out.

 

Natasha was standing there, hands on her hips. Lucky sat at her side, tail wagging proudly.

 

“Seriously, an hour?”


	4. Sweater

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I've been MIA for a few weeks. Had a lot going on at home to deal with. Shouldn't happen again though I may take off my every other Friday upload dates. It'll depend a lot on work and inspiration.
> 
> Prompt:  
> because for some reason it hates Steve  
> nearly as much as Tony hates it  
> Steve continues to win the dog over by buying it treats  
> Coulson secretly loves the crap out of the magy beast because it helped clint out after he did a stup  
> buys it toys and beds and a captain america sweater it then proceeded to mangle and leave in front of steve's door

Tony was lost in the bowels of one of his classic cars, AC/DC blasting loud enough to vibrate the glass of the windshield, when a knock came from the workshop door. Of course, Tony could barely hear it over the wail of a guitar solo. He bobbed his head in time with the beat and reached blindly into his toolbox for a smaller wrench. He was immediately snapped out of his zone when the volume of his music went down drastically. Tony stood up in surprise and bashed his head on the propped up hood of the car.

 

Tony saw stars and swore colorfully, clutching the back of his head.

 

“Don’t touch my music,” Tony growled through gritted teeth in the direction of the intruder.

 

“I’m still not convinced any of that counts as music,” Steve said in that way of his that always sounded disapproving.

 

“You invaded my lab and touched my stuff, your completely incorrect opinion is invalid,” Tony said, giving the back of his head one last rub. At least he wasn’t bleeding but that was gonna be one hell of a bruise.

 

“You gave me a passcode,” Steve pointed out. “You’ve been down here since breakfast yesterday.”

 

Tony blinked. “Jarvis, time?”

 

“It’s is 8:30 AM, sir,” the AI informed and Tony didn’t remember programming that particularly unimpressed tone. “Shall I inform you of the day’s schedule Ms. Potts sent you?”

 

“Maybe later, babe,” Tony dismissed, waving his hand. “Please tell me you brought coffee.”

 

Steve raised a large steaming mug.

 

“You are beautiful but I’m caffeine deprived so don’t take me seriously.” Tony practically flung himself at the coffee and all but inhaled it, completely ignoring the way it scalded the back of his throat. It was gone all too soon and Tony looked expectantly at Steve. “More?”

 

“Only if you come out of your hermit cave,” Steve said. “Bruce is making pancakes.”

 

“Why are you people up at this godforsaken hour?” Tony asked.

 

“It’s Saturday, Tony,” Steve said. “Team breakfast, remember?”

 

Oh yeah. The stupid weekly team bonding activities both Cap and Coulson insisted on. Monday Game Nights that always resulted in smashed tabletops and scattered board games. Thursday Movie Nights which were mostly for Thor and Capsicle’s benefits (and on occasion, Bruce as well given life on the run wasn’t conducive to keeping up with pop culture). Saturday Morning Brunch which required they all get up ridiculously early on the weekend to participate.

 

Tony pouted at Steve because it so wasn’t fair that Cap was a morning person who went on _morning jogs_ and shit that completely baffled Tony. Steve just crossed his arms over his chest. And because Tony’s brain liked to focus on odd details when he was sleep deprived, he couldn’t help but notice the ratty rag in Steve’s hand.

 

“Wazzat?” Tony asked. Even if he was starting to feel the effects of three days straight without sleep (which was just par for the course, he’d gone longer before), he was still a nosy bastard.

 

Steve glanced down at the ripped. Dirty fabric in his hand and tried to hide it behind his amazingly muscled arms. “Nothing.”

 

“Uh-huh,” Tony muttered, so far from convinced. “That better not be you nasty sweat rag from that gross morning running thing you do. Which are a complete travesty by the way, you could be sleeping. The only sweat, blood, and or tears allowed in here are mine. Not including that one time Hulk smashed Barton through the ceiling.”

 

“I already showered, Tony,” Steve protested. “It’s nothing, don’t worry about it.”

 

“Worry? Who said I was worried? I’m not worried.” Tony was beginning to ramble but that wasn’t anything unusual. “If it’s trash, don’t throw it away down here. You have your own trash can and mine’s full of half a Doom bot.”

 

Steve frowned at him. “Why do you have half a Doom bot in your trash? Where’s the other half?”

 

“We’re not talking about me right now, we’re talking about you and…” Tony lunged forward, snatching at the bit of cloth just poking out from behind Steve’s absurdly large bicep. He tugged at it but Steve didn’t even have to try to keep him from taking it.

 

“This,” Tony finished lamely. He continued tugging at it anyway. Because he could be obnoxious as well as nosy. “Lemme see it.”

 

Steve heaved a completely unwarranted sigh and released the cloth. Tony exclaimed triumphantly, shaking the rag out and holding it at arms length to get a good look at it.

 

It looked like the shredded remains of a small grey sweater, too small to even fit around Steve’s head. The Captain America shield logo printed on the front looked particularly… chewed? Tony looked around the sweater at Steve.

 

“Fight with your laundry?”

 

Steve huffed and stuffed his hands in the pockets of his old man khakis. “I found that in front of my door this morning. Coulson bought it yesterday for Barton’s dog.”

 

Tony tried really hard not to laugh.

 

For like a minute.

 

He was still laughing when the elevator doors opened on the common floor and Steve stomped out. The mere sight of the ruined sweater gripped in Steve’s fist was enough to send him further into fits of giggles. Everyone paused what they were doing to look at the both of them.

 

Bruce in the kitchen quickly returned his attention to the pancakes he was making, poking at the skillet of bacon sizzling away on the stovetop. Natasha stood at the kitchen island, making quick work of slicing a variety of fruits. Coulson sat on one of the barstools, his newspaper folded over to watch Tony giggle himself into hysterics. Thor was downing what was probably his third mug of coffee and Clint was sitting in the living room. Because last time he was allowed into the kitchen, his creation had exploded and then _moved on its own_. There was now official SHIELD paperwork to cover any future Barton related kitchen disasters. Steve continued stomping to his favorite armchair, fully ready to sit back and pout like the five year old most of them still behaved like.

 

An almighty growl came from Steve’s chair.

 

The damn dog was curled up there comfortably, staring Steve down without blinking. And nestled between its front legs was a pile of chewed leather that looked an awful lot like…

 

“Is that another pair of _my_ shoes?” Tony demanded, suddenly sober now that the dog was messing with his stuff. Again.

 

“Probably,” Clint said offhandedly as he flipped through TV channels.

 

“Alright, who is giving the dog my shoes?” Tony asked, stamping past Steve’s little staring contest with the mangy animal.

 

“What are you babbling about, Stark?” Natasha barely even glanced up from the banana she was chopping at an alarming speed.

 

“That dog,” Tony growled, jabbing a finger at it, “is not allowed off this floor. Jarvis has very strict commands about it. So _someone_ is sneaking into my room and stealing my shoes so the damn mutt can have 300 dollar chew toys.”

 

“You’re wasting 300 dollars on shoes?” Steve interrupted, breaking eye contact with the dog and losing whatever pathetic standoff had been going on.

 

“So not the point right now,” Tony said, waving his hands animatedly. “I’ve got a list of suspects going, now someone fess up.”

 

“A single sticky note with ‘Barton’ underlined three times is not a suspect list,” Coulson said indifferently, turning back to his paper.

 

“Hey!” Tony and Clint exclaimed, both equally indignant.

 

“Don’t sound surprised, you know it’s you.” Tony whirled on Clint.

 

“Why would I waste my time messing with your shoes?” Clint asked with an unimpressed smirk.

 

“Because it annoys me, you ass, and makes your damn smelly animal happy,” Tony snapped.

 

“Hey!” Clint leapt to his feet. “I just bathed him, he smells fine.”

 

“Please,” Tony sneered. “That thing is probably rotting from the inside.”

 

Clint gasped. “You shut your whore mouth, Stark. My dog is precious.”

 

It said a great deal more than it should about their collective maturity level when Clint and Tony dissolved into a ridiculous slap fight, each trying their damnedest to grab the other’s hair.

 

“Pancakes are done,” Bruce said as everyone else ignored the two man-children wrestling on the floor.

 

“Let us adjourn to the table and break our fast, my friends,” Thor suggested, carrying the literal mountain of pancakes it took to feed all of them to the large, currently undamaged dining table. Natasha brought over her large bowl of fruit salad while Coulson set out plates and silverware. Bruce and Steve brought all the other breakfast fixings and they all behaved like mature, civilized adults.

 

Until they heard a loud series of thumps and a loud yelp from the other room. Lucky came scampering in and Coulson sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose.

 

“You are so much more trouble than you’re worth,” Coulson muttered down to the dog.

 

Steve took the opportunity to drop the ruined sweater in front of him.

 

“Your dog officially hates me,” Steve said and sat as far away from the dog as he could.

 

Coulson stared at the ripped fabric, completely mortified as the tips of his ears turned pink. Because above all else, Phil Coulson was a complete and total Captain America fanboy.


	5. Helicarriers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I know this is very late, it took far longer than it should have to write. It's also twice as long as any other chapter which happens when plot starts sneaking in. (That's my excuse, it really had more to do with the fact I'm rather lazy and the new Captain America movie has left me emotionally compromised) Sorry for making you wiat, I hope you enjoy!
> 
> Prompt:  
> And the only time Tony has ever deigned to call the dog "good boy" was the one time Fury came by the tower to bitch at them while they were mostly laid up after a botched mission and Lucky proceeded to yawn hugely, get up from Steve's chair, and piss on Fury's shoes

“I thought Fury said this was supposed to be a simple ‘keeping the peace’ mission,” Tony said.

 

Clint almost didn’t hear him over the sound of gunfire, screaming, and explosions.

 

“He never said simple, Stark,” Coulson answered flatly. He was monitoring the situation in the helicarrier hovering somewhere in the cloud cover up above. “Who’s keeping the Hulk contained?”

 

“Natasha was leading up a team of baby agents, last I checked,” Clint responded. He was a bit distracted picking off a group of Hydra agents across the street. They had him pinned in the front lobby of a bank, all the large windows blown out, glass sprayed across the marble tile floor. There was still four or five civilians trapped inside and Clint had a very bad feeling the bank was going to be the nest building to explode.

 

“They’ve got a perimeter set up, they can handle him on their own,” Natasha said, suddenly appearing in the middle of the trigger-happy Hydra goons. She took out three of them before they even noticed her.

 

“Flash bomb, Nat,” Clint warned before let the specialty arrow loose. It blinded the agents long enough for Clint and Natasha to finish them off.

 

“Thanks,” Clint said as he came out of hiding. The few civilians left in the building tickled out once they saw the coast was clear.

 

“Hawkeye, we need eyes in the sky,” Captain America’s voice shouted over the comms. There was the sound of another explosion not too far away.

 

“I’m trying, Cap,” Clint said, hopefully loud enough to be heard over another building collapsing. “They keep taking out my vantage points.”

 

“They haven’t touched the Triskelion yet,” Coulson advised.

 

Clint turned around and squinted up at the large building serving as SHIELD’s headquarters. It was definitely the highest building in sight but it didn’t offer much in terms of look out spots with escape routes. If any of the team needed his help, he’d have to jump a long way and he was still in trouble with Coulson from the last time he’d leapt off a building. But it would have to do if he was ever going to help keep an eye on the bigger picture of this god damn attack.

 

“Right. Stark, think you can manage a fly by?”

 

“One sec,” Stark said.

 

Clint turned to give Natasha a look only to find her gone. Probably off to beat up more of the bad guys. Clint went about collecting up his arrows, making sure they were undamaged before putting them back in his quiver.

 

He heard Stark’s repulsors just in time to brace himself. A metal hand clamped down on the back of his vest. He was jerked forcefully away from the ground, the air forced out of his lungs by the force of the wind and the fact Stark was more or less strangling him with his shirt.

 

“Gotta come up with a better pick up system!” he tried to shout over the roar of the wind. Stark must have heard him though, because he chuckled and the damn bastard picked up speed. Fortunately, the trip to the Triskelion was a short one. Stark dropped Clint off on one of the building’s protrusions, about twelve stories up. Clint was forced to roll as soon as he hit concrete to avoid breaking a leg since Tony Stark was a textbook asshole and thought it was funny to drop him just a bit too high.

 

Clint flipped him off before taking up position to keep an eye on his teammates.

 

Iron Man was busy zooming around, shooting off repulsor blasts, laser beams, and his own mini missiles. Hulk and Thor were a few blocks down, having a great time smashing the shit out of the enemy. Clint was pretty sure they would be keeping score if Hulk had the attention span. The baby agents assigned to keep them in line were scurrying around like ants, trying to be helpful and not get taken out by accident. Cap and Natasha were battling the largest cluster of goons in front of the Triskelion, keeping the gunfire on themselves and far away from the evacuating SHIELD personnel.

 

“Coulson, they’re moving in on HQ,” Clint said. He fired and arrow into the chest of a Hydra agent wandering too close to the front door. “Do we have any idea what they’re after here?”

 

“Not yet,” Coulson replied. “They’ve made no demands yet and there doesn’t seem to be anyone in charge monologuing. For all we know, they toadies got bored and are just on a rampage for the hell of it.”

 

“Yeah, cause we could be that lucky,” Cap grunted. He had ten men lying on the ground around him and ran to take on more.

 

“You call this lucky?” Tony snarked down the line. “Oh, hey, Agent. Jarvis just picked up some readings that just scream really big bomb in one of these buildings here.”

 

Clint glanced up and saw Iron Man hovering over the parking garage. The nearest buildings were all SHIELD storage facilities.

 

“Take care of it, will you?” Coulson asked.

 

“Oh, with pleasure,” Stark said, flying towards the nearest building. “But I’m going to block Super Nanny from the cable package for a week after this because this has not been fun.”

 

“You do that,” Coulson said in that flat tone that meant he was internally rolling his eyes. “Natasha, see if you can find someone in charge of this mess. Get him talking.”

 

“I’m on it,” Natasha confirmed. Clint kept and eye on her as she dashed through the enemy troops, taking out anyone dumb enough to try and stop her. She quickly disappeared from his sight the way only the Black Widow could. Clint scanned the area for her anyway before knocking another arrow and setting about protecting the captain’s back.

 

The sound of another building collapsing, this time without the preceding boom of an explosion, made Clint look up.

 

“Please tell me that wasn’t the Hulk,” Coulson all but groaned.

 

Clint saw a blur of green leaping out of the dust and grinned. “Big guy’s having fun, boss.”

 

Coulson sighed. “Stark?”

 

“Uh, yeah, can’t babysit green rage monsters, dealing with those exploding things I mentioned.” Stark sounded distracted which meant he was having difficulties disarming the bombs. “Ok, seriously, I am a genius, this shit should not be so fucking hard- oh shit.”

 

“What did you do?” Cap asked as he pulled a rifle out of his opponent’s hands.

 

“Why is it always something _I_ did?” Stark retorted. “Ok, so this time it was my fault because I snipped the wrong wire and now the timer’s sped up so now I’ve got like less than three minutes to get this bomb out of here but hey, anyone could have made that mistake.”

 

“Get it out of here, Stark,” Cap ordered. He took the guy in front of him down with a bit more force than necessary and Clint smirked. It was beautiful how Stark always managed to rub Rogers the wrong way on every mission.

 

Iron Man shot out of the near by warehouse, glass shattering down from the window he’d smashed through. He had a bulky looking mass of wires and metal in his arms as he flew away at top speed.

 

Stark was halfway to the Potomac when a loud burst of static over the comms made Clint wince, pausing to press a hand to his ear.

 

Natasha’s voice broke in through the static, sounding high, rushed, and panicked.

 

“It’s a distraction!... targeting the… hellicarrier!...he’s called the Winter Soldier! He’s… and dangerous, you all need to stay the fuck away… can’t take him down!”

 

“Nat, where are you-“ Clint was looking up as he asked and saw it.

 

A flash of silver, a flare of yellow.

 

Clint was already diving headfirst from the rooftop as a bullet imbedded itself in the wall behind where he’d been standing.

 

He heard Rogers shout his codename, felt the wind rush around him, and all he could think was how pissed Coulson was going to be. Clint had just enough time to send off a grappling arrow through a window and thank god it stuck to something inside. The cable went taught, jarring his shoulders and slamming his body forcefully into the wall.

 

“Fuck,” Clint gasped.

 

“Hawkeye, what’s you’re status?” Coulson asked and Clint was too sore to hear how worried he was.

 

“I’m fine,” Clint grit out through clenched teeth.

 

“Good.” And oh, that was Coulson’s terse, pissed voice he only saved for special occasions. “Figure out a way down and assist the captain.”

 

“Right,” Clint grumbled. He looked down. There were about three more stories between him and the street and he was all out of cable. Directly below him, Steve was still fighting but it looked like all of the SHIELD personnel had cleared out.

 

Clint didn’t get a chance to try and figure out a way down. There was a muffled gunshot near enough for Clint to hear it over the chaos around him, the cable vibrated under his hands, snapped loudly, and Clint was dropped once again into free fall.

 

“Are you fucking kidding-“ he was cut off as he fell onto the roof of a car. It crumpled under his weight, drove the air from his lungs, and hurt so much he couldn’t feel it yet. He was too stunned to even think about moving for at least the next few minutes. Dimly, Clint knew, somewhere in the back of his head, he’d had much worse falls than this, all things considered.

 

Coulson was still going to kill him.

 

What happened next, Clint had to infer from what he heard over the comms.

 

Natasha called in another, clearer warning about the Winter Soldier, a name that sounded familiar to Clint in a way that was dangerous. So of course, Roger called in about facing off with the guy. Which was a really dumb thing to do because Clint was far too sore to get up and help, as much as he really wanted to. Steve managed to hold his own as Clint started to slowly and painfully push himself off the car. He was upright enough to watch Cap flip a guy over his back and snag the mask from his face. Rogers spun around to face the grungy looking soldier, fist drawn back for a blow. He froze, completely exposed to the bad guy and mouth hanging wide open.

 

“Bucky?”

 

“Who the hell is Bucky?” the Soldier asked gruffly. He didn’t make a move on Rogers, though, just raised his metal left arm to aim a gun at Rogers’ head.

 

Natasha swooped in as the Soldier pulled the trigger, knocking Rogers on his ass and saving him from a bullet to the face. He stayed there, eyes still wide with shock. Natasha left him, turning to take on the Winter Soldier. Remarkably, he was able to match her blow for blow, something Clint had never seen before. It took a very clever trick Clint barely even saw for him to flip Natasha over his shoulder and into a group of waiting Hydra cronies. They proved enough to distract her and the guy disappeared into the Triskelion.

 

“Cap, he’s inside!” Clint shouted, wincing with every step he took toward his shell-shocked comrade. “We need to take him down before he finds anything.”

 

Rogers blinked, shaking his head but seeming to shake off his surprise. He leapt to his feet and began running towards the front doors. “I’ve got him!”

 

“Steve, don’t!” Natasha ordered, snapping a guy’s back over her knee.

 

Rogers ignored her, disappearing inside. Natasha swore in Russian and punched a goon in the throat. Clint struggled through his pain to shoot his last few arrows into the crowd.

 

A very loud explosion shook the air and the ground and had everyone looking up at the sky.

 

“Stark?” Natasha called.

 

“Wasn’t me,” Stark said, dropping down next to her and blasting away the rest of the Hydra agents. “I took care of that bomb while you guys were slacking.”

 

“Shit, that’s what they wanted,” Natasha hissed. Clint frowned at her and followed her worried gaze back up to the clouds.

 

“Avengers, we’ve got a situation up here!” Coulson shouted into the comms, panicked enough to let it be heard in his voice. “Someone just flew a quinjet into our turbines, we’re going down!”

 

Clint watched in horror as the new helicarrier, launched just six months ago, fell out of the clouds above them. The refractive panels flickered for a moment before giving out entirely, revealing how badly damaged the helicarrier was. The back turbines billowed huge clouds of black smoke, flames flickering through.

 

“Stark!” Coulson barked. Clint could hear the sound of sirens through the comms.

 

“Got it,” Iron Man answered, taking off into the air. “I don’t know what I’m gonna do with it, but I’ve got it.”

 

He disappeared into the smoke.

 

“Coulson, get out of there,” Clint demanded, clutching his bow so tight his knuckles were white.

 

“Evacuation’s in progress,” Coulson said. “Stark, can we keep her in the air long enough?”

 

“You’re lucky she’s still up at all!” Stark shouted. He reappeared above the smoke. “You’re best option is to try to get her over the river, hope she floats.”

 

“We don’t have enough control with the back turbines out,” Coulson explained.

 

“Coulson, what the hell are you doing, get the fuck out of there now!” Clint nearly screamed. The helicarrier was falling faster and louder and Coulson was just standing around fucking chatting with Tony Stark like he had all the time in the world.

 

“Barton, I’ve got everything under control,” Coulson reprimanded. “As soon as-“

 

But he never got to finish his next sentence, just like Clint knew he wouldn’t. Because while Stark and Coulson had been shouting about where to try to land the helicarrier, Clint had seen where she was headed on her own. His eyes took it in and his brain plotted the trajectory and he was helpless as the helicarrier crashed into the Triskelion.

 

Metal panels crumpled, steel bars buckled, concrete disintegrated, glass shattered.

 

The comm lines went dead with a burst of static that turned to white noise behind the ringing in Clint’s ears. Coulson had been standing on the bridge, now a flaming crumpled mess burning above him. He couldn’t move, couldn’t feel any pain, didn’t care about the debris falling right towards him. It was only a solid mass of blue crashing into his side and shoving him out of the way that saved him from being crushed under fallen rubble. Rogers pulled him out of the danger zone and sat him aside, turning around to take command of the chaos. The Hydra agents were fleeing as Hulk gave chase. Thor and Stark were hovering around the wreckage of the helicarrier, trying to help whoever they could. Natasha was collecting the baby agents and Steve was shouting orders.

 

Clint barely took any of it in. Everything was hazy, every noise fuzzy.

 

He missed seeing the man with the silver arm sneaking out of the Triskelion and into the shadows.

 

.:.

 

Clint jolted awake as he nearly fell out of the hard plastic chair he was sitting in. He blinked away sleep, shook his head, and quickly took stock of his surroundings.

 

SHIELD medical room, all sterile white walls and fluorescent lights and the stench of cleaners. The blinds were drawn over the large observation window, granting an illusion of privacy. Clint wasn’t dumb enough to believe that; SHIELD always had cameras everywhere.

 

The heart monitor behind him beeped loudly in his ear, steady and so god damn reassuring. Phil was still lying in the bed, unconscious but not dead and thank god not hidden away somewhere while Fury lied about his status. He was banged up pretty badly from the crash, his head wrapped with bandages, a line of stitches above his left eyebrow, his right wrist in a brace.

 

Clint wove his fingers with Phil’s uninjured ones and sighed. Lucky perked his ears up from where he lay beneath Clint’s chair, picking his head up to look at him.

 

“Hospitals suck, huh boy?” Clint muttered, reaching down to scratch behind Lucky’s ear. The dog leaned into the touch, tail wagging gently.

 

There was a soft knock at the door and Clint looked up.

 

“It’s open.”

 

Rogers poked his head inside. There was dirt covering his face, his hair was a mess, and he looked tired.

 

“Hey,” Rogers greeted. “Any change?”

 

Clint shook his head. “How’s the clean up effort going?”

 

“Slow. We’re all taking a break while-“

 

“Move, Cap’n Crunch,” Iron Man’s tinny voice interrupted. Rogers was shoved inside and the whole damn team followed after. They all looked filthy, tired, and Stark still had his armor on. At the end of the line, Thor carried a stack of plastic chairs for everyone to sit in. Bruce, wearing SHIELD branded sweats, immediately collapsed into one, throwing his head back and falling asleep within seconds. Natasha passed on the chair Thor offered her, sitting on the end of Phil’s bed and putting a hand on his leg. Stark took the extra chair for himself, propping his feet in it as he lounged back. His helmet detached with a hiss and he dropped it into his lap. Rogers leaned forward in his own chair, ignoring Lucky’s warning growls and looking thoughtful. Thor chose a spot on the wall to lean against and look perfect like the demi-god bastard that he was.

 

“You all really felt the need to crash here?” Clint asked. “You’re loud enough to wake the dead.”

 

“Or the sleeping invalid,” came Phil’s dry comment and Clint whipped his head around. Phil’s eyes were only half open but his lips were pulled up in a smirk. Clint felt a rush of relief strong enough to make his knees weak.

 

“Welcome back to the land of the living, Agent,” Stark joked, not looking up from whatever he was doing on his phone. “Again.”

 

“Your concern is touching, Stark,” Phil said. He glanced sideways and met Clint’s eyes. Clint did his best to glare murder back at him but he was far too happy to see him awake.

 

“I’m never letting you step foot on a helicarrier ever again.” Clint managed to make it sound somewhat threatening around his grin.

 

Phil smirked back sheepishly. “Yes dear.” He lifted their joined hands and kissed the back of Clint’s knuckles. Stark made a gagging noise. Clint flipped him the bird without looking at him.

 

“What happened?” Natasha asked, rubbing Phil’s leg.

 

“That’s exactly what I’d like to know.”

 

All eyes turned to the doorway were Fury stood, arms crossed, good eye sweeping the room to glare at each of them in turn. “Someone care to explain how Hydra managed to destroy half my HQ?”

 

No one leapt to their feet to answer. Clint turned back to Phil and couldn’t hide an amused smirk; Phil had closed his eyes again and was feigning sleep.

 

“Do not try to pretend you’re still unconscious, Coulson,” Fury rebuked. “You flew my helicarrier into the Triskelion.”

 

“Actually, sir, it crashed into HQ on its own,” Phil said, not opening his eyes.

 

“I can vouch for that,” Stark commented.

 

“No one is talking to you,” Fury said. Stark shrugged. “I asked the Avengers to help contain a few trigger happy terrorists and you caused more damage stopping them than if we’d let them run wild.”

 

“You know we don’t work for you, Nicky,” Stark said and he was very lucky Fury had yet to develop laser vision. “We grudgingly assist SHIELD with the nasty global crisis stuff that’s above your superspy pay grade. Which isn’t very high, I’ve seen Barton’s paychecks.”

 

Clint felt like he wanted to protest but it was true. SHIELD paid shit.

 

“Well your assistance has the World Security Council breathing down my neck, _again_ , to shut down the Avengers initiative,” Fury threatened.

 

“That’s not your call to make, sir,” Rogers said.

 

Clint raised his eyebrows in surprise. Rogers rarely interrupted Fury’s bitching sessions, he took freaking notes last time they’d had to suffer through one. This time, Rogers’ fists were clenched tightly in his lap and his shoulders were shaking with anger.

 

“Like Stark said,” he continued. “This team works with you, not for you.”

 

“Regardless, Rogers,” Fury said slowly, obviously thrown by the captain’s disruption. “You were asked to help with a _potential_ threat, not light a fire underneath it.”

 

“Might I suggest we leave our friend Hulk behind next time you require things be dealt with delicately,” Thor joked with a smirk.

 

“Stark should be left with him,” Natasha suggested.

 

“Excuse you,” Stark objected.

 

“My point is,” Fury began, trying to regain control of the conversation.

 

“I think your point, sir, is that you lied to us.”

 

Rogers’ accusation was enough to get Phil to open his eyes and stare. Clint so wished he had some popcorn. Captain America taking on Nick Fury was movie levels of entertaining.

 

“What are you talking about, Rogers?” Fury asked.

 

“I think you knew Hydra was going to attack,” Steve said, his voice low and dangerous. “You knew, but instead of telling us about it, you let them attack us because you didn’t know what they were after.”

 

“And why on Earth would you think that?”

 

“Sorry, Nicky,” Stark said, waving his fingers when Fury turned on him. “Legitimate paranoia after that whole tesseract fiasco. I had Jarvis run through your files and transmissions. And don’t look at me like that, I know you’ve got your fingers poking through my servers, I felt it was fair if I poked back. I can tell you which files they hacked into if your techs haven’t figured it out yet.”

 

“Stark,” Fury said warningly.

 

“How long have you known about the Winter Soldier?” Rogers asked.

 

Fury just stood there silently. Clint almost felt sorry for him, having his reprimand turned around on him like that, but the sneaky bastard kind of deserved to be grilled by the Avengers.

 

“We’ve known about the Winter Soldier since we recruited Agent Romanov,” Fury finally admitted. Clint glanced at her but she was watching Fury, her face closed off and blank.

 

“And how long have you known he was Sergeant James Barnes?” Rogers’ tone was reaching glacial levels.

 

“We’ve had suspicions about the Soldier’s identity but nothing concrete. We had no idea it was Barnes.”

 

“I’m finding that really hard to believe right now,” Rogers said.

 

“Believe whatever you want,” Fury dismissed. “Right now, we’ve got Hydra running around with stolen SHIELD intelligence and half my best agents are out for the count.”

 

Clint stopped paying attention as soon as Fury got back on track with his bitching. He stroked his thumb over Phil’s knuckles and looked over his face. Phil’s eyes flicked to his and he offered a tired little smile that had a few more lines than usual around the corners. Clint hated every reminder of Phil’s mortality and the bastard just seemed to like pressing the issue. He couldn’t understand how Coulson put up with his own proclivities for leaping off tall buildings. Of course, Clint’s escapades only ever resulted in long hospital stays. Phil had actually died and fuck but did that put a strain on Clint’s tolerance for Phil staying in the field. He knew what life without Phil was like, he would do anything and everything to never experience that sort of hell again. He might actually fill out paperwork if there were forms that would prevent Phil from going _near_ another helicarrier. There probably was, it wouldn’t surprise him, SHIELD had too much paperwork for there not to be.

 

Phil squeezed his hand, knowing Clint far too well to know he was brooding. Or, judging by his pointed nod toward Fury, he was trying to get Clint to pay attention. Clint raised an unimpressed eyebrow.

 

_Yeah right._

The corner of Phil’s mouth twitched up but he didn’t look back at him. Clint turned his head towards Natasha, ready to make faces with her. It was their usual go to entertainment while Fury ranted. She wouldn’t look at him, her eyes laser focused on Rogers. Who looked to be about five minutes away from punching somebody.

 

Yeah, Fury was an idiot if he thought this Winter Soldier thing wasn’t going to bite him in the ass. Nat would make sure it did at the very least. This was a figure from her past and she always hated loose ends.

 

Clint slouched in his chair with a heavy sigh and tuned in to Fury.

 

“-and when you leave the Hulk alone to single handedly destroy a mall-“

 

Oh, they were gonna be there a very long time. Fury was going step by step over what they’d done wrong.

 

Steve was definitely going to punch someone before this was done.

 

Stark was definitely going to start some sort of incident if the grin on his face was anything to go by. He was bored and texting Pepper, that never ended well for anybody.

 

Lucky suddenly sat up from beneath Clint’s chair. Clint moved his legs out of the way as the dog got to his feet with a yawn. Lucky padded over to Fury and sniffed at his black leather shoes, completely oblivious to the danger of standing so closed to a raving Fury.

 

And then Lucky lifted his hind leg and peed on Fury’s shoes.

 

There was a very tense silence, broken only by the sound of flowing pee. Fury stopped mid rant and looked down at the dog with wide, disbelieving eyes. Clint had to draw on his years of sniper training to keep from bursting out laughing.

 

Lucky finished his business and returned to sitting next to Clint’s chair. He was completely nonplussed by Fury’s glare even though Clint could _feel_ the heat from it. Lucky merely scratched at his collar.

 

Fury opened his mouth, seemed to think better of it, and then stormed out of the room with everyone staring after.

 

Tony turned his completely awestruck gaze on Lucky and reached over to pat him on the head.

 

“Good boy.”


	6. Fleas

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wow, so like long time no update. These chapters keep getting longer, I don't understand what's happening. It's also not Tuesday but I'm sick and tired of this chapter so here, have it, take it away.
> 
> Prompt:  
> Pepper finally has to draw the line when Tony winds up getting fleas from the dog  
> She sends the dog to a high end groomer and after an entire month (during which Clint mopes and pines for his smelly buddy) Lucky returns sans fleas, worms, and weird smell  
> Tony's completely convinced Pepper just bought a different dog and lied to Clint about it  
> until it jumps back into Steve's chair with Tony's new shoes

“You know I bet he planned all this.”

 

Pepper tried very hard not to look at Tony, to focus on the quarterly reports she needed to review. It was a tad difficult when the man-child she once called a boss was half sprawled over her desk but years of putting up with Tony’s moods helped. If she didn’t acknowledge his whining, he would eventually wander off and bother Bruce or Rhodey. Or possibly start some sort of international incident but Pepper wasn’t too worried about that at the moment.

 

“-liar who lies and now he’s got Rogers running all over the place-“

 

The eye roll was just not something Pepper could stop. Tony had been complaining about Steve’s absence for an hour straight and it wasn’t hard for Pepper to put two and two together. Tony was pining and his glaringly obvious crush would be cute if it didn’t make him act so pathetic in her office.

 

Pepper glanced over as Tony finally sat up off her desk, scratching absently at the back of his head.

 

“This couldn’t wait for later?” Pepper asked, raising an eyebrow.

 

Tony put his hand over his heart, mock wounded. “Miss Potts, I have come to you for your wise council. You keep telling me I need to talk about my feelings, here I am, confiding in you, and you can’t be bothered to listen.”

 

“You are not talking about your feelings,” Pepper pointed out. “You are complaining about Steve and Nick inconveniencing you.”

 

“That’s a feeling,” Tony insisted. He ran his fingers through his hair, causing it to stick up oddly.

 

“Tony, I have already told you, this isn’t the best time,” Pepper reminded, trying to turn back to her paperwork.

 

“Bruce said the same thing,” Tony grumbled. He propped his feet on the edge of her desk. “He can’t listen while handling unstable compounds, you’re too busy doing boring office stuff. I let you all live in _my_ shiny new tower, rent free, and you can’t even be bothered to take five minutes out of your lives for me?”

 

Pepper turned a very vicious glare on him, trying very hard not to ruin her manicure by digging her nails into her desk.

 

Tony took his feet off the desk so quickly his chair spun. “I would very much like to retract that statement and instead tell you how particularly beautiful you look today.”

 

It was the closest he would get to an outright apology but the damage was already done. Pepper could feel irritation itching under her skin, tense in her shoulders. She folded her hands over her paperwork and continued to stare Tony down.

 

Tony sat back a bit in his chair, scratching behind his ear. “Seriously though, does Steve have to be the one to go after the trigger happy assassin? I mean, the murder twins could have done it-“

 

“Tony,” Pepper interrupted sharply. “I have a meeting in half an hour to soothe share holders you’ve offended in the last week. It is really in your best interest to not annoy me right now.”

 

Tony blinked at her with wide eyes.

 

Pepper inhaled deeply and slowly through her nose, closing her eyes. Tony always managed to rile her up, needle and poke until he got under her skin and made her yell at him. And god damn him but he always made her feel guilty about it after.

 

She opened her eyes to see Tony scratching at his hair, _again_ , and the little bit of patience she’d managed to regain vaporized.

 

“Why?! Why do you keep scratching you hair? Stop it.”

 

He stopped, looking genuinely surprised by his own actions. “My scalp itches.”

 

“Well, your hair is a mess now,” Pepper stated.

 

Tony shrugged and attempted to fix his hair with a few halfhearted pats.

 

Pepper rolled her eyes. “Come here, I’ll fix it.”

 

She pulled a comb from her purse, left over from her years of chasing after Tony in an attempt to keep him publicly decent. She got up and stepped around her desk.

 

“Can’t keep your hands off me, can ya?” Tony teased.

 

Pepper swatted his nose with the comb. “Behave.”

 

He leaned into her touch as she began combing his hair back into place. She was granted 10 miraculous seconds of silence before…

 

“I tried calling Steve this morning.” His voice was soft and absolutely dejected. “He didn’t answer.”

 

“He’s probably busy with his mission,” Pepper reassured. “He’ll be fine.”

 

“It’s not like I’m worried about him,” Tony objected, crossing his arms petulantly.

 

“Of course not,” Pepper agreed.

 

“It’s just if something happens to him, he’s gonna come back all pissy and double our training schedules.”

 

“Because you follow all of his suggestions about how often you should be training with the team.”

 

“I do so! Well… it’s not my fault if he likes to have them at ass crack o’clock in the- _Fuck!_ Nails! Nails!”

 

Pepper only half heard Tony’s pained whining. The hand not digging nails into Tony’s ear held the comb at the part of his hair, revealing the pale scalp beneath. She could have sworn she saw something _move_.

 

“No, Pepper, I don’t need my ear. You always complain I don’t listen enough, I’m sure _ripping it off_ will help.”

 

Pepper released him after a moment. Of course something like this would happen on her busiest day of the week. She turned around and hit the call button on her phone.

 

“Yes, Miss Potts?” he secretary responded, voice tinny through the speaker.

 

“Rachel, please clear my schedule for the next few hours. And call Mr. Stark’s hair stylist. Tell her it’s an emergency.”

 

“Yes, Miss Potts.” The connection cut out with a click.

 

Pepper turned back around, resting her hip against the desk. Tony regarded her cautiously, rubbing at his sore ear.

 

“Everything ok, Pep?”

 

“Where the _hell_ did you get fleas?”

 

.:.

 

“Here’s your tea,” Clint said, handing the warm mug to Phil. The older man was laid out on the couch, his injured leg propped up on a pile of pillows and his lap covered with files. Phil stopped using his injured hand to write and frowned at the tea.

 

“I thought I asked for coffee,” he said blandly.

 

Clint shrugged. “Doc said no caffeine with your meds.”

 

He carefully picked up Phil’s feet, plopped down on the couch, and let them fall into his lap.

 

“I will stop sleeping with you if you keep me away from coffee,” Phil warned. He took a sip of the tea, pulling a face at the taste.

 

Clint raised a challenging eyebrow before digging his thumbs into the bottom of Phil’s uninjured foot.

 

“I take it back,” Phil moaned with a voice like sex.

 

Clint smirked. His foot massages won Phil over every time. “How’s the paperwork going?”

 

Phil moaned in a less pleased way. “Try to remind me to crash the next helicarrier into a building that doesn’t belong to SHIELD.”

 

Clint chuckled. “I told you, you’re not stepping foot onto a helicarrier again.”

 

Phil kicked him gently. “When you stop jumping from tall buildings, you can tell me what I can do.”

 

Clint stuck his tongue out at him. They fell into a comfortable, familiar silence, Phil returning to his paperwork and grudgingly drinking his tea.

 

Lucky padded up to them after a while, dragging a mostly shredded rope toy in his mouth.

 

“Hey, buddy,” Clint greeted. He leaned over Phil’s feet to grab at the toy. Lucky growled playfully, not letting go of the toy.

 

“Do not let your dirty animal anywhere near my paperwork,” Phil warned as Lucky’s tail wagged dangerously close to a neat pile of files on the coffee table.

 

“That a new euphemism?” Clint wagged his eyebrows.

 

Phil shoved him off the couch with his foot. Clint laughed as he hit the floor and Lucky tried to jump into his lap.

 

The front door to their apartment slamming open made them all jump. Both Phil and Clint pulled guns from various hiding places, aiming at the intruders marching into the room.

 

“Pepper?” Phil said as soon as he recognized who was barging in.

 

The red haired woman stormed up to Clint, ignoring the guns still aimed on her. Clint cringed at the look on Pepper’s face. He’d faced down super villains who looked less terrifying.

 

“Whatever it is, Tony did it,” Clint said immediately, tightening his grip on his gun. “I only suggested it, he said-“

 

His excuses were cut off when Pepper reached out and snagged Lucky’s collar. It took her less than a minute to clip on his leash and drag Lucky out of the apartment, leaving Stark behind her.

 

Clint blinked after her, then looked to Stark. He looked incredibly uncomfortable, his hair wet and drooping into his eyes.

 

“What the hell was that?” Clint asked.

 

“Your dog gave me fleas,” Tony said simply.

 

.:.

 

Clint showed up at the entrance to Stark’s workshop later that day. Normally, he’d just drop down from the air vents and give Stark a heart attack but Clint did actually feel bad about the fleas. Even if it did result in Lucky’s kidnapping and who knew if Pepper was ever going to return him. But Clint was being good because Phil needed Pepper to stop texting him about Stark so he could take a nap. So Clint knocked politely and barged in without permission.

 

“How can I help you, Feathers?” Tony asked from where he was perched on a rolling stool. He was messing around with a pile of wires and machinery on the nearest tabletop. His hair stuck up in clumps and there was greased smeared over his forehead.

 

Clint didn’t answer his question, just threw a folded piece of paper down in front of him. Stark raised an eyebrow and opened it.

 

“What the hell is this?” he asked after looking it over for a minute.

 

Clint grinned, patting the support strut of one of Stark’s bots as it rolled up to him. “Boomerang arrow.”

 

Stark blinked before throwing his head back and laughing.

 

“Aw, come on,” Clint said, pouting. “It’s not that stupid.”

 

“W-what are you gonna do with this?” Tony managed to ask through his laughter.

 

“Boomerang,” Clint said simply. He thought it was a good idea. He needed a few new trick arrows and the SHIELD R&D never listened to his suggestions.

 

“There is no way this can work,” Tony dismissed.

 

“Saying you can’t do it?” Clint challenged. “I don’t think he can do it, Dummy.”

 

The bot whirred at him and nudged his hand for more petting.

 

Tony frowned. “I never said that. But these designs suck, I mean what is this bit even supposed to be?”

 

Clint didn’t try to hide his smirk as Tony focused on the sketch. Phil owed him so big for this. With Stark properly distracted, Pepper would be able to get some work done. She’d stop texting Phil for help, he’d stop worrying about how Stark was wasting his time, finish up his paperwork, and go the fuck to sleep. If Clint got a few trick arrows and a thank you blowjob from Phil later, well, that was well worth having to save the world from a moping Stark.

 

Distracting Stark took a lot more than Clint anticipated. It was only a few hours later and there were mock-ups for a dozen different kinds of arrows glowing bright and blue in the middle of the workshop. The boomerang arrow had taken four prototypes and most of an hour to get right but once Clint got them to return after firing, Stark took off with more ideas.

 

It was like watching a hamster on a wheel. Stark moved his limbs erratically, almost twitching, but it all had a purpose. He was frantic to get his ideas actualized as quickly as possible and Clint wondered if his brain every shut up. Given Stark’s tendency for insomnia, probably not.

 

Clint disappeared from the workshop for a few minutes while Stark worked on the prototype for a sonic arrow. He needed five minutes from Stark’s nonstop chattering and a case of beer if he was going to endure any more time with the nerd. A quick elevator ride later and Clint was quietly entering his apartment. Inside, Phil was passed out on the couch, his head thrown back over the arm, his mouth slightly opened as he snored softly. Clint grinned softly. He loved watching Phil sleep because it happened so rarely. Clint usually fell asleep first, woke up last. Phil was an idiot who worked too much.

 

Clint quietly pulled a six-pack of cheap beer from the fridge, careful not to make a sound. Phil was an annoyingly light sleeper. He stepped over Lucky’s dirty dog bed, wondered if Pepper would ever return the dog. She owed him now, for keeping Stark out of trouble. So far…

 

Clint managed to leave the apartment without disturbing Phil, six-pack tucked under his arm. He closed the door and nearly jumped out of his skin when he turned to find a wall of Asgardian muscle.

 

Thor could move damn quietly for a guy his size. It was really only his voice that was louder than life and so long as he wasn’t talking, the bastard could sneak up on people nearly as well as Natasha.

 

Thor grinned as Clint tried to get his heartbeat back to a normal rhythm.

 

“We’re getting you a bell,” Clint said.

 

“Apologies, my friend,” Thor said, not looking the least bit sorry. “I found myself alone this evening and wondered what you might be up to.”

 

“I’m on Stark-sitting duty,” Clint explained, punching the button for the elevator. “I need booze if I’m gonna keep him from trying to nuke New Jersey again.”

 

Thor nodded in understanding. “Would you care for company in this endeavor?”

 

Clint shrugged. “We’re just building some new arrows for me to use but I’m not gonna say know. Need a designated driver if I’m gonna get drunk enough to put up with Stark all night.”

 

“Lady Darcy has designated me the driver previously,” Thor said as the elevator dinged open. “I am still uncertain as to her meaning. Lady Jane does not allow me to drive your Midgardian forms of transportation after I crashed her Jeep.”

 

Clint used the elevator ride down to explain the Midgardian custom of being a DD. Knowing what he did about Thor’s friends, and the she-devil that was Darcy Lewis, the big guy had plenty of experience dealing with misbehaving drunks. Clint couldn’t help the shiver that ran down his spine remembering Darcy. He’d met her all of three times but she had the worst aspects of Stark, Natasha, and demon spawn wrapped up in a disarmingly cute package. Drunk Darcy was probably as destructive as drunk Stark but she didn’t have the inexhaustible bank account to smooth over property damage lawsuits.

 

Thor would be more than capable of keeping Tony and Clint out of trouble for one night.

 

“I confess I did not participate in the act of Designated Driving on Asgard,” Thor admitted, looking a bit guilty. “Our mead is far too tempting a treat but your Midgardian drinks have not affected me.”

 

“I’m sorry for your loss,” Clint said sincerely. He couldn’t imagine dealing with the lunatics they lived sober the entire time.

 

The elevator dinged open and Clint was glad to see Stark hadn’t wandered off. He probably hadn’t even noticed Clint was gone. They let themselves into the lab and Clint flopped down on the couch tucked away in the corner. He propped his feet up on the coffee table, careful to avoid a few circuit boards and a mug of some sort of off-green sludge. Thor stooped to greet Stark’s bot with a pat, Dummy making happy chirping noises as static leapt from the thunder god’s fingers.

 

Stark turned around just as Clint cracked open his first can of beer.

 

“What is that?” he asked, like it was personally offending him.

 

“Beer,” Clint answered, the can suspended just before his lips.

 

“No,” Tony said firmly. “I am a billionaire with a refined palate, you are not bringing that peasant swill into my workshop.”

 

Clint blinked at him innocently before gulping down half the can at once.

 

“Fine.” Tony waved him off. “Drink your cheap horse piss instead of my expensive imported nectar of the gods.”

 

Thor watched them, his expression amused.

 

“Not all of us need to spend a grand a glass to drink our problems away,” Clint retorted, swallowing down another mouthful of beer.

 

“It is not drinking away our problems,” Tony protested. He gestured them over to the marble countertop against the far wall. “Tonight, we are bonding as team mates. You too, Point Break.”

 

“You have alcohol in your workshop?” Clint asked, hopping up off the couch.

 

Tony shrugged. “Old drinking habits die hard. I also hide snacks down here so Pepper will stop pestering me about not eating.”

 

Clint peered over his shoulder as he opened the freezer. “Ok, first, pizza rolls are not food, and second, you are no longer allowed to make fun of my tastes in cheap junk food.”

 

Tony flipped him off. “You live in my Tower rent free, I will mock as I please.”

 

He set a row of shot glasses in front of them and pulled out a bottle of something pale amber. The label was in something that looked like Swedish but Clint could still see the proof was pretty damn high. Tony managed to artfully pour out the drinks without a spilling a drop.

 

“Bottoms up,” Tony said, sliding glasses to Clint and Thor before knocking back his own. They followed suit, slamming the glasses down on the counter top, carefully in Thor’s case. Clint grimaced as it burned the entire way down his throat.

 

“Tis tasty,” Thor said happily, licking his lips.

 

“Plenty to go around.” Tony slid another shot glass over and they both drank.

 

“You’re falling behind, Pincushion,” Tony called over his shoulder as he went back to the mock-ups. “Kick it back and come see what I’ve got for you.”

 

It was somewhere around Clint’s seventh shot that he stopped counting as his limbs loosened and his head went fuzzy. He could admit Stark had some excellent booze. Tony had a tumbler of what looked like scotch perpetually in his hand even after they stopped messing with the new arrows. They agreed it was a good idea after the rebound arrow bounced off of every available surface (including Thor’s forehead) and crashed through a half empty bottle of whiskey.

 

They settled down around the workshop, Clint swayed on a stool next to the bar, pouring a bit of everything into his cup while Thor sat cross legged on the floor.

 

“So, Thor,” Tony slurred from where he lounged over the black leather couch. “How’s you love life?”

 

Thor smiled dreamily, leaning back against Dummy’s base. The bot was playing with his hair. “It is well, thank you my friend. Lady Jane has been very busy lately, trying to find sponsors for her latest research, so we have not been able to see much of each other. But our love is still strong.”

 

“Does she need help?” Tony asked, flipping over onto his stomach. He crossed his ankles in the air and Clint was reminded of a gossiping girl at a sleep over. “I could totally help her out. I’ve read her papers, she’s super smart. You are a lucky bastard.”

 

“I know full well,” Thor chuckled, grinning.

 

“But seriously, my R&D department needs a brain like hers, she’d fit in perfectly. Bruce and I need another science bro.”

 

“Science bro?” Clint snickered. Tony stuck his tongue out at him before turning back to Thor.

 

“I can get Pepper to hook her up with a floor here in the Tower so you two can be all close and coupley together. Or she can keep traveling, I’ll pay for it cause I know the stargazing here in New York really sucks.”

 

He spoke like an over eager kid describing the perfect Christmas gift and Clint giggled to himself.

 

“I am certain she would wish to bring the Lady Darcy with her,” Thor warned.

 

“No,” Clint said seriously. “No, Darcy is evil. Like, very evil. She tased me last time I saw her and then she tried to hit on me.”

 

“She has done the same to me,” Thor commented. “I believe that is how she shows affection.”

 

“Crazy evil,” Clint stage whispered to Tony.

 

“There’s plenty of room,” Tony said, unwisely ignoring Clint’s warning. “Ask her, tell her she can have whatever job she wants. Gotta keep love alive.”

 

Thor nodded with a small smile. “Thank you, my friend, I shall ask.”

 

He got up from the floor and tucked himself into a quiet corner of the workshop.

 

Tony stared after him before giving a wistful sigh. “I wish I could have that.”

 

Clint nodded, watching Thor smile at the screen of his phone as he typed. “It would be nice.”

 

Tony turned back over to glare at him. “You do not get to say that. You and Agent are disgustingly domestic and I know more about Agent’s sex life than I ever wanted to.”

 

Clint shrugged, unrepentant. “I just wish he made gestures like Thor does.”

 

Tony frowned. “You want him to bring you a giant goat he killed with his bare hands?”

 

“Ew, no.” Clint shook his head, nearly overbalancing on the stool. He knew he was drunk to be admitting this to anyone, much less Stark, but he was also too drunk to stop. “I know Phil loves me, he puts up with me on a daily basis and I am not that good at the sex… but I just… I wish we could have at least had an actual wedding ceremony, you know?”

 

Tony blinked and then sat up so violently he spilled his drink on the couch, making Thor look up in concern and almost making Clint fall off his stool in surprise. “There are married people in my tower and one of them is Agent?!”

 

Clint nodded slowly.

 

“Why did I not know this?” Tony asked. He whirled on Thor with an accusing finger. “Did you know about this?”

 

Thor shook his head.

 

“No one knows, so be quiet,” Clint shushed, flapping his hands.

 

“How are you married,” Tony whispered loudly.

 

“Phil put in paperwork for it,” Clint explained. “He likes doing paperwork. I know it’s boring but it looks sexy.”

 

“Gross.” Tony made a face.

 

“He said I was falling off too many buildings so if I was giving him heart attacks anyway, he should get the life insurance if I ever did manage to kill myself.”

 

“That’s it?” Tony asked incredulously. “Do you even have rings?”

 

Clint shook his head. “Told Phil he didn’t have to. It was ok, I don’t deserve him at all and I don’t want him to think I’m greedy cause that’s not sexy at all. But after he pretended to die like an asshole… I deserve a damn white wedding at that bullshit.”

 

“White? Seriously?”

 

“You get what I mean.” Clint shrugged. He finished off what was left in his glass and set about pouring another mix of whatever was closest. “At least I’m not single.”

 

“Wow, low blow man, uncalled for.” Tony raised his glass in salute anyway. “Totally true, my love life sucks right now and it’s all Rogers’ fault.”

 

“How’s it Cap’s fault?” Clint asked.

 

“I am too single for him to be so damn attractive with his shoulders and the butt and his stupid puppy dog eyes and the rest of him being all perfect.” Tony moved his hands about wildly.

 

Even drunk, Clint knew he had to play the next few minutes very carefully if he was going to win the betting pool. His chosen date was fast approaching because Stark and Rogers were absolute morons who were taking for-god-damn- _ever_.

 

“He keeps taking all of the cute girls, doesn’t he,” Clint commented, knowing full well that had nothing to do with it.

 

“It’s not even that, I can work around that. I’m Tony Stark,” Tony said. “He’s just so damn _hot_ he’s throwing off my game. And he’s perfect in every single way. He volunteers at kids’ homes for crying out loud. How is he even real? It’s not fair.”

 

Tony crossed his arms and pouted.

 

“Nat says he snores like a jet engine,” Clint offered.

 

“Is she talking to you while she and Steve are off being best friends forever?” Tony asked, a bit too eagerly. Clint nodded.

 

“Then why won’t Steve answer my calls?” Tony whined.

 

“Why do you care?” Clint asked. He wanted to congratulate himself on how subtle he was being but that probably wouldn’t be very subtle.

 

Tony stared him down before heaving a sigh. “This is a secret so you cannot tell anyone, you gossip.”

 

Clint crossed his heart and his fingers.

 

“I may… possibly… want to climb Rogers like a tree.”

 

Clint tried very hard to look surprised but he’d stopped being able to feel his face half an hour ago so he wasn’t sure how well he was doing.

 

“Don’t judge me,” Tony said defensively. “Your ‘husband-‘” he used air quotes and Clint sniggered- “would totally do the same.”

 

Clint hummed in agreement. “He’s made me dress up as-“

 

“LALALA!” Tony stuffed his fingers in his ears. “I don’t want to know about your kinky sex with Agent Stuffy. I’m just trying to confess my undying love for Capsicle and you’re making it dirty.”

 

Clint’s eyes widened. “ _Love?_ ”

 

Tony realized his mistake a second too late. “Don’t-“

 

“Tony and Steve, sitting in a tree,” Clint sing-songed, swaying. “F-U-C-K-I-“

 

He received a pillow to the face. Dissolving into a fit of giggles, Clint lost his balance and fell off the stool.

 

.:.

 

Tony made his way down to the communal kitchen the next morning, scratching his stomach through his shirt. He needed coffee very badly, 10 a.m. was far too early after a long night drinking with Barton. He felt especially sore waking up and it had taken a moment for him to remember why. He made a mental note to move faster the next tie Thor came at him with a bear hug of gratitude. The guy could crush people with his pinky and he’d been especially appreciative when Jane had taken up Tony’s offer. He needed to remember to let Pepper know…

 

“J, let Pepper know about the thing with Jane Foster,” he said.

 

“Of course, sir,” Jarvis chimed in.

 

“And ask her to free up some time this week, we need to plot. And let her know it’s not another take over the world kind of plotting,” he added.

 

Tony rounded the corner into the kitchen and took a moment to take in the gratifying sight laid out before him.

 

Barton was slumped over the kitchen counter, his face buried in his folded arms. His hair was a mess and he was still wearing the same shirt and jeans from yesterday. He gripped a mug of coffee so tightly his knuckles were white. He was so beautifully hung over, Tony couldn’t resist being an asshole.

 

“Gooood morning!” Tony called loudly, stomping into the kitchen.

 

“Die,” Clint grumbled from beneath his arms.

 

“Aw, is that any way to talk to your friend and landlord?” Tony teased.

 

“Die now.”

 

Tony beamed and set about slamming open cabinet doors and banging pans. Clint muttered and groaned the entire time, something about all the terrible and imaginative ways he wished Tony would disappear.

 

“Can you even cook?” Clint asked, turning his head slightly to blink a bleary, red eye at him.

 

“Nope,” Tony said smugly, banging down a pan onto the stovetop.

 

“Die twice,” Clint swore.

 

Tony made sure to laugh loudly.

 

“Why are you so damn cheerful?” Clint asked.

 

“I didn’t get drunk last night.”

 

Clint turned his head quickly and released a curse, grabbing his forehead with his free hand. He paused a moment, probably trying to get the world to stop spinning, then asked, “What?”

 

Tony crossed his arms over his chest and leaned his hip against the counter. “I have perfected the act of pretending to be smashed when I am in fact stone cold sober. And I have been very good about my recent drinking habits, Peppers orders.”

 

Clint squinted at him. It might have been a glare. “Die single.”

 

Tony proceeded to hum _Here Comes the Bride_.

 

“I’m flipping you off in my mind,” Clint informed him, burying his head in his arms again. “You are Satan.”

 

Tony could accept that. He was kind enough to ma a sub par, mostly unburned omelet for Barton, which he managed to gobble down without hurling. Tony was sitting down with his second cup of coffee, another pot brewing away in the machine, when Jarvis announced, “Sir, Miss Potts is on her way up and she asks that you and Agent Barton brace yourselves.”  

 

Clint glanced at him. “What did you do?”

 

“I don’t remember so I’m actually offended you think it was me,” Tony said.

 

“It usually is.”

 

“Last time she was mad at us, it was your fault because you let a wild animal into my Tower.”

 

They glared at each other but before either could say anything further, there was a series of loud happy barks. Tony stiffened, waiting for Barton’s mangy mutt to appear and make a mess of something.

 

Instead, a well-groomed retriever mix galloped around the corner and into Clint’s legs. Its short trimmed fur was light yellow in color, with no mats or dirt anywhere on it. The collar read Lucky but Tony could not believe it. He looked at Pepper, mouth agape, as she smiled at Clint’s happy reunion with his fuzzy friend.

 

“That is not the same dog,” Tony accused. “That cannot be the same dog. Did you waste money buying him a new dog that smells less?”

 

“Hey!” Clint protested from where he was kneeling, Lucky trying desperately to wiggle onto his lap.

 

Pepper raised an artfully waxed eyebrow at Tony. The corner of her lips turned up in a way that always meant bad things before pulling out one of Tony’s leather shoes from behind her back.

 

“Lucky,” she called, waving the already chewed shoe. The dog’s ears perked up as he turned away from licking Barton’s face. He raced over, tail wagging at a ridiculously fast (and painful if Barton’s protest to it hitting his face was any indication). The dog grabbed the shoe, yanked it from Pepper’s hand, and raced into the living room.

 

“You’re the one who’s been giving my shoes to that animal?” Tony asked incredulously.

 

“You have more shoes than I do, Tony,” Pepper said dismissively. She waved them into the living room where they found the dog curled up in Steve’s chair, chewing happily away.

 

Tony turned to Pepper. “We are officially starting a religion in your honor. Only a god could have preformed such a miracle.”

 

“He wasn’t that dirty,” Clint muttered and Tony raised an eyebrow at him.

 

Pepper rolled her eyes at them. “Just don’t piss off the Vatican again. Clint, I have him set up for monthly grooming and Phil is aware of them so your dog will not be missing one. There will be no more fleas in my Tower.”

 

“Yes ma’am,” Clint replied at the same time Tony said, “ _You’re_ Tower?”

 

She ignored him. “Also, Steve called this morning.”

 

Tony hated how much that news interested him.

 

“They’ll be back by the end of the day and he asked for Chinese take out for dinner,” Pepper informed them. “Jarvis?”

 

“I shall make the call before the Captain and Agent Romanoff arrive,” the AI complied.

 

“Thank you, Jarvis.” She turned away from them, back towards the elevator. “Please try not to break anything or hire new people to be ‘whatever they want’ before they get back.” She threw a pointed glare at Tony.

 

He smiled guiltily.

 

Knowing Steve was coming back from his month long mission made Tony irrationally happy. He really didn’t want to look into why exactly that was so he distracted finishing up Barton’s arrows. It took all of an hour to complete them and set the fabrication machines into overdrive. Dummy tried to shove a smoothie in his face. Upon noticing the odd blue-black color and the horrible smell, Tony decided to make another attempt at teaching his bots how to make drinks without killing him.

 

He gave up two hours later after the third broken blender, making a very serious mental note to donate his pathetic bots to a community college.

 

It was only 4 and Tony knew he was going to go crazy waiting.

 

He was in the process of making another Iron Man suit, doing more than he reasonably should by hand, when Jarvis informed him of Steve’s arrival. He leapt from his workbench, nearly tripping onto his face in his rush to get to the elevator. He bounced on the balls of his feet as he waited for the elevator to take him down.

 

Everybody else was already digging away at their food, the take out cartons laid out on the large coffee table. He took note of Natasha draped over Barton’s lap.

 

“Where’s Rogers?” Tony asked, trying to sound casual as his eyes darted around the room. Barton’s snort told him how unsuccessful he was.

 

“He’s on his way,” Natasha answered. She elbowed Barton very hard as he tried to steal from her carton of chicken. “He had a few last minute things to work out.”

 

Tony nodded and grabbed a carton of fried rice. He found, as he plopped down on the love seat next to Bruce, that he wasn’t that hungry, his stomach moving in excited knots He bounced his knee impatiently until Bruce purposefully propped his leg on it, shoving Tony slightly with his shoulder. He gave Tony a questioning look but he could only shrug in return. He had no idea why he was so eager for Steve to be coming back.

 

“Captain Rogers and his guests are now in the elevator,” Jarvis announced and Tony frowned. Guests? Pepper hadn’t mentioned guests.

 

The elevator doors opened with a ding and Tony caught himself leaning forward in an attempt to see around the wall. Steve stepped forward, looking freshly showered, a bit tired, but still gorgeously perfect.

 

Behind him stood a black guy in an Army shirt and what looked like a hobo wearing the same ugly SHIELD issue sweats Barton liked to wear on weekends.

 

Steve gave a little wave to the room in greeting. “Hey guys. Uh, this is Sam and Bucky.”

 

Tony recognized the name, half recognized the face, from his fathers old war files. Steve had just spent over a month looking for his long lost friend and now he’d brought him back home.

 

Tony couldn’t say why his heart sank into his stomach, why he suddenly felt disappointed in a way he hadn’t since his father sent him to boarding school.

 

Clint’s face, which seemed only slightly sympathetic, told him he might be able to.


	7. A Week in the Life of Steve Rogers: Monday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So changning things up a bit, hence why I've not updated in a long time. This next arc of the story is called A Week in the Life of Steve Rogers and I want to update each day on the actual day of the week. So here is Monday's. I promise the other days will follow accordingly, they're all written, I just have to type them!
> 
> Prompt:  
> The dog's crowning achievement in the Tower is when it somehow shows up at the front entrance with a box of puppies  
> Somehow meaning Lucky is definitely a boy (Clint gets bitten for his trouble making sure) and they are actually in a box that says free to good home  
> Tony says no  
> Clint says "it's cute you think i'm asking permission" as he hauls the box inside  
> Coulson says no  
> so they hide them in Steve's closet

Monday:

 

Steve woke up before the sun, just as he did nearly every morning since joining the Army. It started as necessity and quickly turned into habit until Steve became what Stark grouchily called a “morning person.” It was the perfect time of day to run though. The air was cold and the city barely stirring, a quiet Steve enjoyed on his runs. He could focus on the rhythm of his steps, the steady beating of his heart, the sound of his breath as it puffed out in small clouds of steam. Sometimes it was the only moment of peace he had, awake before the rest of world and the villains trying to harm it.

 

Before the start of the Avengers Initiative, it was the least lonely part of his lonely days. Now, over a year and a half later, Steve’s morning runs were no longer lonely.

 

Agent Sam Wilson had joined Steve on his runs during the mission to track down Bucky. He was an excellent running partner, even if he couldn’t run as long or as hard as Steve liked. Steve slowed his pace for him, though, because Sam knew the best times to talk, to listen, to make jokes, and when to enjoy the silence. He’d proven to be an invaluable ally as well as a good friend and Steve was glad to have met him.

 

“Your friends here are weird,” Sam commented after a block of silent running.

 

Steve laughed. “We fought off an alien invasion as our first bonding experience. Did you really think a bunch of superheroes were going to be normal?”

 

“No,” Sam admitted. “But even for SHIELD you guys are odd. They really live up to the tabloid gossip.”

 

“I did try to warn you before you decided to move in,” Steve reminded him.

 

Sam laughed.

 

Their run continued until Sam’s pace began to flag, his breathing becoming heavier. Steve slowed with him, made sure to fall behind him. He grinned to himself as Sam nearly came to a stop before picking up his pace and racing past.

 

“On your left.”

 

“That was never funny!” Sam shouted after him. Steve laughed anyway.

 

He’d been doing a lot more of that these past few weeks.

 

Steve ran a few blocks at his super soldier pace, weaving through the few other people out and about as the sun began to rise. He made a full round before looping back around. He tracked Sam down to the coffee shop they always ended their run at, a small little corner shop that served excellent coffee and great homemade pastries. Even early in the morning, there was a line stretching out of the door and Steve was glad to see Sam was already waiting inside, about fifth in line.

 

“Oh no,” Sam protested when Steve tried to squeeze in and join him. “You go to the end of the line, I do not save spots for old farts who think they’re funny.”

 

Steve grinned and stood as close to Sam as possible. He received an elbow to the side for his troubles.

 

They got four coffees and a large box of pastries to go, making their way back to the Tower at a leisurely pace. They were able to go unnoticed by the paparazzi perpetually camped out in front for which Steve was extremely grateful.

 

“How is it you can pop out a great motivational speech in the middle of a fire fight but shove a camera in your face and you clam up?” Sam teased as the elevator carried them up. Steve chose to ignore him.

 

Natasha was already in Steve’s kitchen, wearing her black workout clothes and a faint sheen of sweat. Her morning ritual started an hour after Steve’s always coinciding perfectly with his return from his run. Natasha enjoyed hand-to-hand combat practice and since returning to the Tower, she’d been able to find other sparring partners. Steve’s backside was especially grateful; Natasha was absolutely ruthless first thing in the morning.

 

“So whose blood are we mopping off the floor this morning?” Sam asked, handing over a cup of coffee.

 

Natasha took it with a small smile. “James cleans up after himself.”

 

Steve tried not to look too eager about her comment as he put down the box of pastries on the kitchen table. The novelty of having his old friend back had yet to wear off, even if Bucky wasn’t the same, couldn’t remember all the history they shared. Too many decades in Hydra’s hands had scarred him, not irreparably, but there would always be lasting changes, even if Bucky got all his memories back. Any hint of Bucky’s old personality made Steve’s heart lift a little bit.

 

As if to prove Natasha’s point, Bucky wandered in, freshly showered. He made a happy humming noise at the sight of the pastries, snagging a blueberry scone and slouching into one of the chairs. It was so much like something he would have done before, Steve couldn’t help but smile.

 

“So what’s on the agenda for today?” Bucky asked around a mouthful of scone. He brushed crumbs off his shirt with his metal hand.

 

“SHIELD psych has you booked for a few hours after 10,” Sam said, leaning against the counter with his coffee.

 

“Goodie,” Bucky muttered.

 

“Phil wants us in for another debrief as well,” Natasha told Steve.

 

“Again?” he asked, half way to reaching for a cheese Danish.

 

Natasha shrugged. “Hand me that cinnamon twist.”

 

After finishing breakfast and showering, Steve met up with Natasha and Bucky in the parking garage. Natasha wanted to take her favorite black sports car, stolen directly from Stark’s fancy car collection. Steve and Bucky looked at her incredulously; there was no way their combined bulk would fit. They settled on a large, black SUV and Natasha grumbled the entire drive to the New York SHIELD headquarters.

 

The tall skyscraper looked completely unassuming, just a giant glass box hidden amongst other glass boxes. The sidewalk in front was teeming with busy agents in suits coming and going from the building. After the incident with the helicarrier and the Triskelion, most of the DC based operations had been moved to New York. The restoration project had only just been started a few days ago, after the wreckage of the helicarrier had been cleared away. Until that was finished, everyone was crammed tightly into whatever available offices could be found.

 

According to Natasha, it was causing a lot of issues with security and Steve could see why. With so many more agents and consultants coming and going, there were a lot more exposed points that needed covering. While every SHIELD agent was trained to be the best at undercover surveillance, anyone who knew what to look for would easily see where the security guards were positioned.

 

“If we aren’t attacked before we get the Triskelion back in working order, I’ll start attending Mass with you,” Phil said. Steve smiled awkwardly and tried not to knock over a stack of files. Phil’s office had been completely over run with mountains of boxes, limiting the available moving room to about the size of a closet.

 

Natasha kept out of the way by perching on the edge of Phil’s desk. She was browsing through a manila folder until Phil plucked it out of her hands. “There’s nothing confidential in there.”

 

“Doesn’t mean you’re allowed to read it,” Phil said in response to her protests.

 

“If you won’t let me read Clint’s monthly reviews, why am I here?” Natasha asked.

 

“There are certain members of SHIELD who wish to be kept up-to-date on the Winter Soldier’s recovery,” Phil said without preamble.

 

Steve straightened in his chair. “What do you mean by that?”

 

“This is Hill, isn’t it,” Natasha said darkly. It wasn’t a question.

 

“The World Security Council has made the request but yes, you will be reporting directly to Assistant Director Hill,” Phil explained.

 

Natasha swore under her breath in Russian and Steve found he agreed with the sentiment. Steve had nothing against Hill personally, having only interacted with her a handful of times. He didn’t fully trust her, she was too close to Fury, too willing to step over the line to do what SHIELD wanted done, a bit too harsh on her subordinates. She had a ruthless reputation but Steve could respect her unwavering loyalty.

 

So while she understood why she didn’t trust Bucky, Steve immediately felt defensive. “What exactly will she be asking for?”

 

“For now, she just wants to be sure he attends his daily therapy sessions,” Phil said. “She’d like to know what he does afterwards, how he behaves during the day. She may ask for more specifics as he begins to recover his memories.”

 

“She wants us to spy on him in case he reverts back to his Hydra training,” Natasha accused, slamming her hand on the desk.

 

Phil sighed. “We did the same to you when Clint first brought you in. I am aware you are unhappy with this assignment. You’ll be reporting to Hill tomorrow morning while Barnes is meeting with our therapists. Please save your complaints for her, I cannot do anything about it at the moment.”

 

“Yes sir,” Steve agreed rigidly. Natasha merely scoffed.

 

“Please do not antagonize her, Natasha,” Phil requested. “She will make things a lot more difficult than they need to be.”

 

Natasha turned her head away.

 

“I know you only pretend to do what I ask,” Phil said. “Please don’t give me anymore headaches than Clint already does.”

 

Natasha shrugged in response. Steve silently agreed with her. Hill should know better than to expect any member of the Avengers to betray their friends.

 

“I need to go shoot something,” Natasha muttered. She hopped off Phil’s deskand walked out without another room.

 

“I’ll go make sure she doesn’t shoot any interns,” Steve said, standing up to follow her out.

 

“Thank you,” Phil called after him.

 

.:.

 

Natasha paused after emptying her fifth clip into the paper target set up down the range. Steve watched her carefully, leaning against the wall with his safety gear on. He raised an eyebrow as Natasha summoned the target forward with the press of a button.

 

“They tried to get me to do the same thing to Clint,” Natasha said softly, running her fingers over the bullet holes. Stee noticed there seemed to be a pattern to her otherwise random shots. Very few had hit dead center and Steve knew she was a better shot than that.

 

“Shoot him full of holes?” Steve joked, removing his ear buds. He knew perfectly well what she meant.

 

“The fact I haven’t yet means I probably never will,” Natasha said dryly. There was likely a lot more behind that comment than she’d ever be willing to admit. “Hill asked me personally to keep an eye on him after Loki. Like she didn’t know I hadn’t left his side since he found out about Phil. He was a mess and all she wanted to know was if he was still under Loki’s control.”

 

Steve jumped in surprise as Natasha violently slashed at the target with one of her hidden knives. Her movements quickly connected the bullet holes until NO was easily read.

 

“James doesn’t need me reporting is every move like Hydra did,” Natasha spat, turning to glare at the surveillance camera in the corner.

 

Steve bit his lip. “Hill doesn’t trust him. She’s going to get her evaluation one way or another.”

 

“She can try,” Natasha growled. She shoved her knife back in the sheath at her waist. Steve could only remember acting so angrily on the battlefield. She was usually much better composed around other people but they’d gotten much closer as comrades in arms as they looked for Bucky. She trusted him, not nearly to the levels she trusted Clint and Phil, but enough to show her real emotions.

 

“I’m going to convince her that Bucky is fine,” Steve told her. Natasha’s eyes flashed as she regarded him. “We both know he’s not going to turn on us. The psych reports will prove that. So if we give Hill just a little bit of information, enough to keep her from breathing down Bucky’s neck, she may be more willing to believe us.”

 

Natasha continued to glare. Steve shifted uncomfortably.

 

“Do you always have to be so reasonable?” she sighed.

 

Steve shrugged. “Bucky could probably tell you otherwise.”

 

Natasha smirked and patted his arm. “I’m hungry. Buy me lunch.”

 

Steve huffed a laugh as she led the way out to the parking lot. She let him drive which was probably for the better. She was still angry and there were a lot of pedestrians walking about. She propped her feet on the dashboard and pulled out her phone.

 

“Clint says there’s a new diner near the park we should try,” Natasha said, distracted as she typed away on her phone.

 

“That’ll work,” Steve replied. She pointed out the way, pausing in between directions to look at her phone. She was still texting when Steve parked in front of the diner.

 

“Who are you talking to?” Steve asked, getting out of the SUV.

 

“Making sure Stark hasn’t broken Sam yet,” Natasha answered. “Clint spotted them testing new wings about an hour ago. He’s providing live commentary.”

 

Steve snorted. “How’s that going?”

 

“Apparently the tests involve jumping off the roof and seeing who can play chicken with the sidewalk longest.” She rolled her eyes. “Banner brought popcorn. They’re waiting to see who gets hurt first.”

 

“Nothing good on TV?” Steve joked.

 

Natasha shook her head, letting him hold the door open for her.

 

The diner served excellent bacon cheeseburgers, Steve wolfing down five with the other patrons watching with wide eyes. Natasha ordered a salad and picked at it, mostly stealing Steve’s fries. She insisted on trying a slice of every pie on offer before Steve asked for the check.

 

“You know, asking if they’ll give me a senior discount is only funny if they actually know who I am,” Steve informed her as they left.

 

Natasha shrugged. “It confuses people and makes you blush, I’m entertained, that’s all that matters.”

 

Steve blushed again.

 

“You’re too easy, Rogers,” Natasha laughed. “So where to now?”

 

“I was going to stop by the children’s home down the street,” Steve said with a shrug. “They need some new volunteers.”

 

Natasha nodded. “Gimme the keys, I’ll drive by for you.”

 

“You will stop fro me to get out, right?” Steve asked.

 

Natasha merely raised an eyebrow as if to say, _we’ll see._

 

.:.

 

“’Scuse m, Captain Rogers.”

 

Steve looked down at the little boy tugging lightly on his pants leg. He had messy blonde hair, wide green eyes, and a look of awe on his face. Steve had let the usual workers introduce him to the kids as Captain America and while they had whispered excitedly to each other, none of the kids so far had seemed brave enough to talk to him. Steve smiled down at the boy, kneeling to get eye level with him.

 

“Hey there, what’s your name?”

 

“I’m Teddy,” the boy replied, his mouth turning up in a small smile.

 

“It’s nice to meet you, Teddy.” Steve held out his hand.

 

Teddy shook it before saying, “Can you help me please?”

 

“Sure,” Steve replied. “What do you need?”

 

Teddy grabbed his hand again and dragged him over to a nearby bookshelf. The little boy pointed upwards. “I can’t reach the crayons.”

 

There was an unopened box of crayons right at Steve’s eye level. Looking around, Steve noticed a group of kids already coloring with a pack of broken crayons. They kept glancing over their shoulders at him.

 

“Why not color with the others?” Steve asked.

 

Teddy looked down at his dirty shoes, scuffing the toes against the floor. “There’s not a lot of crayons left.”

 

Steve bit back a frown. He wondered if that was true or if the other kids weren’t so willing to share. Grabbing hold of the crayons, Steve smiled down at the little boy and said, “Go get some paper.”

 

Teddy’s face lit up and he dashed off. Less than a minute later, Steve was squatting in a plastic kid’s chair, his knees practically tucked under his armpits, drawing on colored paper.

 

“What are you drawing?” Teddy asked. He leaned forward to grab a green crayon.

 

“I’m drawing my friends,” Steve explained.

 

“You’re friends with Iron Man?” Teddy asked, obviously recognizing the red and yellow armor Steve was doodling. He nodded and Teddy bit his lip. “Ms. Grant says he doesn’t have a mommy or a daddy anymore.”

 

“That’s true,” Steve said, remembering Ms. Gomez as the woman in charge of the volunteers. “They died a long time ago, when he was younger.”

 

“Is he sad about them?” Teddy blinked at him, his head turned to the side.

 

“Sometimes,” Steve admitted. He wasn’t honestly sure how true that was. He knew Tony had not gotten on well with his father and he never mentioned his mother.

 

Teddy frowned. “Can you tell him it’s ok to be sad sometimes? I’m sad about Mommy but Ms. Gomez says that’s ok.”

 

Steve smiled. “I’ll let him know. I’m sure he’ll appreciate it.”

 

Teddy beamed at him. “I’m drawing my mommy.”

 

The little boy began chattering away about his dead mother and Steve listened to every word. It was a cruel world that saw children losing everything. Steve understood all to well what it was like, to no longer have anything familiar, to be stranded in a new world, forced to learn a new way to live. It amazed him how resilient these children were, to be able to get up every day with smiles and enjoy themselves even after the last of their tears dried up. He almost couldn’t believe it, even with Teddy sitting in front of him, happily recounting how his mom always burned their waffles on Sundays.

 

And just as children are, Teddy was quickly distracted by another little boy grabbing him for a game of tag. Steve smiled after them.

 

“Teddy’s a good kid,” someone said behind him. Steve turned around to see Ms. Valorie Gomez, a short, friendly, Hispanic woman, standing just over his shoulder. “He’s been with us for about a year now.”

 

“No one’s tried to adopt him?” Steve asked. He got to his feet, stretching out of his bent position. “He seems like a sweet little boy.”

 

Ms. Gomez shrugged. “He had a foster family when he was first put into the system, after his mother died. They asked the state to take him back after a few months without an explanation. Since then, we’ve had difficulty finding placements for any of our kids. The alien attack left a lot of displaced children behind.”

 

Steve nodded. He wondered if Teddy’s mother had died in the attack. The timing would have been right for it. He didn’t ask. Didn’t really get a chance once the group playing tag asked him to join in.

 

The kids were sad to see him go at the end of the day, even the ones who’d been too shy to ask him to play. He promised he would try to return the next day, gently prying grabby hands from his pants. Ms. Gomez eventually had to threaten them all with early bed times to get them to scatter. Steve shot her a grateful smile and waved goodbye.

 

Steve was half surprised to see Happy Hogan waiting for him outside with one of Tony’s less than subtle cars.

 

“Mr. Stark requested pizza and Miss Romanoff suggested I stop by,” Happy explained, opening the back passenger door for him. Inside, the backseat was mostly taken up by stacks of pizza boxes.

 

“He couldn’t get delivery?” Steve asked, lifting a stack so he could sit down. He put the boxes down in his lap just as his phone buzzed in his back pocket.

 

“Mr. Stark is very particular about his pizza and delivery times,” Happy told him. Steve rolled his eyes. Stark could really be an obnoxious, spoiled brat, making people go out of their way to cater to his whims. He just had to show off his money, make sure everybody was impressed and paying attention to him.

 

His phone buzzed again and distracted him from his line of thought. Steve managed to fish it out of his pocket without upsetting the pizza boxes. The lock screen alerted him to two messages from Natasha.

 

_Already got James, waiting 4 pizza ;)_

 

_Tell Happy to step on it. U do not want to miss what’s hppning._

 

Steve relayed the message to Happy who had no qualms about stepping on the gas. Steve sent a message back to Natasha, letting her know they were on the way and she should maybe work on her grammar and spelling.

 

The picture she sent in response made absolutely no sense.

 

It was a dirty, chewed up cardboard box, the words “Free to Good Home” sloppily written on one side with a bold, black marker. Natasha wouldn’t explain, even after the three questioning messages Steve sent her.

 

Happy made good time getting back to the Tower and helped stack the pizza boxes in Steve’s arms. The chauffer wished him luck before driving away, probably laughing the entire time. Steve steeled himself up on the elevator ride up. He’d lived with his teammates for too long to think he’d ever be prepared for the antics they could get up to when left to their own devices but he could always try.

 

Expecting the usual unexplainable chaos, Steve was cautiously surprised when the elevator doors opened up to silence. He could make out the noise of a sports program playing on the TV, the faint sound of Natasha and Bucky speaking to each other in Russian, the sound of people moving. With a sigh, Steve stepped into the living room.

 

Bruce caught sight of him first, smiling softly in greeting before returning to the book propped up on his knee. Natasha noticed and turned to look over the back of the couch.

 

“Finally,” she said, making grabby hands for the pizza and nearly dumping Bucky’s head out of her lap. Steve kept out of her reach, stepping around the couch, putting the boxes on the coffee table, and then pausing.

 

“Where did those come from?” he asked.

 

Clint and Sam looked up at him from where they both sat, cross-legged on the floor. They had five puppies playing around them, a few trying to crawl into their laps. The puppies were all different shades of brown and yellow, big paws making them clumsy as they chased each other about. Behind them, curled up in what used to be Steve’s favorite chair, Lucky watched over everything, keeping his eye on Steve.

 

“Well, the blond one followed Phil home one day, we haven’t been able to get rid of him,” Nat said from the couch. “We made the mistake of feeding the other one, so he’s probably here to stay.”

 

“Excuse you, _I_ was the one who fed _you_ ,” Sam protested.

 

“I meant the puppies,” Steve clarified, moving into the kitchen for plates. By the time he got back a minute later, they’d already started eating straight from the boxes. Steve tried not to roll his eyes and went back to exchange the plates for napkins.

 

“Lucky found them,” Clint explained once Steve sat down next to Bruce. “He was sitting in front of the Tower with the box when I got home.”

 

“How did he get out?” Steve asked.

 

Everyone shrugged.

 

“Does Tony know you’re turning this place into a petting zoo?” Steve helped himself to a slice of pepperoni.

 

“Not yet,” Bruce answered with a grin.

 

“That’s why we told you to hurry,” Natasha said. “Stark’s reaction should be priceless.”

 

“I hear you talking about me, Romanoff,” Tony’s voice called from down the hall. “If you have any questions about any particular part of my anatomy, you can always see for your-“

 

His comment, which was on it’s way to highly inappropriate, ended as soon as he entered the living room, Thor following behind. Tony’s face contorted strangely, one eye twitching at the sight of the puppies.

 

“No,” Tony said after a moment.

 

“It’s funny how you think I’m asking your permission,” Clint said, feeding a bit of pepperoni to the puppy trying to crawl up his chest.

 

.:.

 

“So Phil said no.”

 

Steve blinked down at Clint, still trying to wake up. It was 3 a.m., he’d actually been sleeping pretty soundly. So of course Clint needed to ring the doorbell with his box of puppies in tow.

 

Steve would really rather face some sort of global crisis instead.

 

“I was sleeping,” Steve said around a yawn.

 

“I figured, only Stark is awake at these stupid hours.” Clint carefully shifted the box in his arms. Even the puppies were asleep. “Well, Stark and unfortunate idiots who are sleeping on the couch.”

 

“If I let you in, you’re gonna keep me up the rest of the night, aren’t you,” Steve said cautiously, knowing it wasn’t really a question.

 

“Probably.” Clint stepped forward and Steve moved to block his entrance.

 

“Tell me what you want so I can go back to sleep.”

 

Clint pouted at him. “Phil won’t let me back in the bed until I find somewhere for the puppies. I thought… maybe you could…”

 

He let the suggestion hang in the air.

 

“Why not ask Natasha?” Steve suggested.

 

“I knocked, she didn’t answer.” Clint shrugged. “Last time I barged in, she was in the middle of some very naked yoga with a hot intern and I know she’s got your not-really-dead best buddy up there with her.”

 

Steve’s ears and cheeks heated with a blush. “You don’t think they’re…”

 

“I don’t know, I don’t really wanna find out. Been there, done that, she’d shoot me if I tried again.”

 

“So that brings you to my door at 3 in the morning.” Steve raised an eyebrow.

 

“Well, I tried with Thor but apparently Jane is allergic and she’s moving in with him this week. And Bruce has this thing about not wanting to have his furniture torn up by teething puppies. C’mon, you’re the best bet for these guys. Your new boyfriend already loves them.”

 

“Who?” Steve questioned.

 

“Sam,” Clint stated, as if that should be obvious.

 

“We’re not dating,” Steve protested.

 

“Not according to Stark’s bitching,” Clint commented. “He’s completely convinced he’s the only one in the Tower not getting laid. And I would really like to not join his pity party so please, for the love of god, take these puppies and I will let you go back to sleep.”

 

Steve stared him down for a moment before sighing and holding out his hands.


	8. A Week in the Life of Steve Rogers: Tuesday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> See, I told you I was updating every day this week. Aren't you lucky :)  
> Just a heads up for the next few chapters: I know very little about volunteering at kids homes (that will be very obvious). I volunteer at animal shelters and thus wrote as if the policies are exactly the same (I am very aware they are not). Don't worry, I make fun of that later on. We're gonna go ahead and pretend this is how things work in this Marvel universe, we can do that, right?
> 
> Prompt:  
> Steve can't say no to orphans, which is why he has bi-weekly visists to four different orphanages to play with the kids/help out the staff.  
> Steve runs into a kid named Teddy Altman (who is six years old and his mom just died and Steve just can't get those puppy dog eyes out of his head, especially when they change color on him)

Tuesday:

 

Steve rolled out of bed before the sun was up, tripped over the gaggle of puppies that had managed to get out of their box, and groaned as he stepped in a warm puddle of pee. He’d never managed to get back to sleep after taking them in, lying awake and staring at the ceiling as his thoughts chased themselves about, and now he really wanted to turn around and give sleep another try. One of the puppies started chewing on Steve’s toes through his socks.

 

It took him five minutes to corral them all into his closet before changing into his jogging clothes.

 

“We need to make a detour,” Steve explained to Sam in the elevator, punching the button for Barton’s floor. Once they got there, Steve did his very best to take down the door by knocking, ringing the doorbell several times for good measure. The door was answered by a very groggy Clint.

 

“Washappenin?” he mumbled, yawning hugely.

 

“The puppies peed in my room,” Steve said sternly. “Go take care of them.”

 

Clint frowned up at him. “’S like six in the morning.”

 

“Yes it is,” Steve agreed and turned around without another word. He very deliberately ignored Sam and his stupid grin.

 

Their run mostly involved Sam snickering at him and Steve purposefully shoving him into random obstacles.

 

“Are we gonna name the puppies?” Sam asked after they got their coffee and pastries.

 

“We probably shouldn’t,” Steve said. “I’m pretty sure Pepper is going to insist they go to different homes after the whole flea incident.”

 

Sam made a noise in agreement. “You’ve named them already, haven’t you.”

 

It wasn’t a question.

 

Steve smiled sheepishly. “I couldn’t get back to sleep after Clint dropped them off.”

 

“So what are we calling them?” Sam asked, laughing.

 

“Peggy, Jones, Monty, Mori, Jacquie,” Steve said quickly.

 

Sam nodded, then paused. “Wait… you named them after the Howling Commandos?”

 

Steve kept walking.

 

“You are an absolute sap, Rogers,” Sam noted, jogging a bit to catch back up. “So you were up all night figuring out names?”

 

“Not really, it took me all of five minutes to put together,” Steve admitted. “But Clint said something and it irritated me.”

 

“Most of what comes out of Barton’s mouth is irritating,” Sam pointed out.

 

“Apparently, Tony is under the impression that you and I are dating,” Steve explained.

 

Sam raised an eyebrow.

 

“It’s just like Tony to make an assumption like that,” Steve complained. “I mean, he thinks he knows absolutely everything and his assumptions always get him into trouble, his ego is far too big for his well being. I’m surprised it all fits into his damn helmet.”

 

Steve’s opinions on Tony carried on all the way back to the Tower, Steve had so many. How his ego got him into trouble, his obsession with other people’s sex lives was invasive and just a bit disturbing, and there had to be a label for that kind of thing, there’s a label for everything today, Sam, which makes finding information on things pretty convenient, the Internet is actually pretty great. And of course, Tony doesn’t believe he knows how to use technology, like Steve hadn’t figured out how Hydra tech worked all on his own and it was nice that Tony wanted to help but he really needed to get over the notion that no one could possibly be as smart as the great Tony Stark. Steve would like to see him last one week without any technology, he’d probably cave after half a day or get himself killed by poking something he shouldn’t out of boredom. And he’d whine about it the whole time too, Tony could out whine a toddler because absolutely everything needed to be about Tony Stark and his problems.

 

Sam let him rant, barely holding back a smirk and nodding occasionally. Steve had a moment in the middle of his ranting when he realized he probably sounded exactly like the crotchety old man Tony joked about. He was way too into it, though, to do anything more than bring up the point about the old jokes because they were getting used way too much and they weren’t all that clever.

 

Steve stopped mid-sentence at the sound of glass shattering just inside his apartment. He shot Sam a look, saw him tensed and ready for anything. Sam nodded and they barged in. They found nothing worthy of a full freak out, only Natasha and Bucky in the kitchen. The shards of a glass rested in a pool of orange juice, sprayed out over the tiled floor. Steve noticed Bucky’s tight shoulders, the way Natasha’s hand rested just inches away from Bucky’s clenched fist. She was murmuring softly to him, in English, Steve noted, and he could tell what had happened.

 

Natasha told Bucky about their new “mission” and he hadn’t taken the news well at all.

 

.:.

 

Steve subtly tapped Natasha’s foot under the table with his own. It was probably the fifth time he’d had to grab her attention during Hill’s briefing. She refused to listen to the Assistant Director much longer than five minutes at a time. Her face and posture seemed attentive but her eyes continually glossed over.

 

She responded to him the same way as before, stomping on his toe with the heel of her boot.

 

“I’m sorry, am I boring you both?” Hill asked, nodding pointedly at their feet.

 

Natasha proceeded to look completely innocent.

 

“No ma’am,” Steve responded. “We’re just a bit uncomfortable with this… assignment.”

 

“I’d gathered,” Hill commented. She crossed her arms across her chest. “All right then, Romanoff, share your concerns.”

 

Natasha’s eyebrows lowered marginally. “I don’t feel SHIELD should waste resources monitoring Barnes outside of his psych evaluations. Those alone should provide enough intel for your purposes.”

 

“And I’m sure you feel the same, Captain?” Hill asked.

 

Steve nodded.

 

“I understand your personal feelings for Barnes,” Hill began slowly. “My purposes, however, require I ensure Barnes remains psychologically sound outside of SHIELD custody.”

 

Natasha stiffened slightly in her chair.

 

“I expected resistance from both of you,” Hill continued. “And I ensure you, I will continue to monitor Barnes’ situation. The level of your cooperation determines how much of SHIELD’s resources I have to waste, as that seems to be such a high priority for you, Agent Romanoff. If I feel it’s necessary, I will have Barnes’ detained.”

 

Steve frowned. “That’s hardly necessary, Assistant Director.” He didn’t mean to put any sort of emphasis on the word “assistant” but that’s certainly how it came out.

 

Hill merely raised an eyebrow at him. “I agree. However, I will not take chances on a former enemy agent still recovering from mind alterations. With the number of agents we’ve had to deal with in similar situations-“ She looked at Natasha- “this is practically standard procedure. We will not be treating Barnes any differently simply because he is your friend.”

 

Steve want to argue, wanted to tell her he wouldn’t act like Hyrda, keeping tabs on Bucky’s every move, not allowing him any freedoms… but Hill’s point was sound. Bucky was an unknown, even to himself at times. As much as Steve hated to admit it, Bucky could still be dangerous.

 

Hill seemed to know she’d won over just a fraction of cooperation from him. “I’ll expect your reports by Friday.”

 

She turned away from them, a clear dismissal. Steve made sure to direct Natasha away from any unfortunate interns as they left, leading the way to Phil’s office.

 

Phil was already ready for their arrival, his desk covered with a pile of sub sandwiches and bags of potato chips. There was even a plastic bowl of salad, which Natasha began stabbing as soon as she sat down opposite him. Steve cautiously took the seat next to her.

 

“I appreciate you holding back on Hill,” Phil said, eyeing Natasha warily. “Clint explained the situation with Bucky this morning.”

 

“Not now, sir,” Natasha ground out.

 

Phil wisely let it go. “Clint also let slip about the puppies he left on you doorstep. I’d like to apologize for his stupidity.”

 

“You’re never gonna get to do anything else,” Natasha muttered under her breath.

 

“It’s alright,” Steve assured him. “They slept most of the night and I made Clint clean up the mess they made in the morning.”

 

Phil nodded. “I’ve got him training new field agents for the rest of the day as punishment.”

 

“For who, the baby agents?” Natasha asked skeptically. “He’ll get more fun out of terrorizing them than actually teaching anything useful.”

 

“They come to me with a healthy dose of fear, that’s all I need them to learn,” Phil stated simply.

 

“That’s because he keeps exaggerating the cactus story,” Natasha said.

 

Phil shrugged.

 

Steve decided not to ask what the hell they were talking about. “So there’s not going to be anyone to watch the puppies this afternoon? I was hoping to go by the children’s home later.”

 

“Why not see if you can bring them in with you,” Phil suggested. “I’m sure the kids will love them.”

 

“Maybe,” Steve considered.

 

“Take Lucky with you too,” Phil said. “He hasn’t really been able to stretch his legs lately.”

 

“He stretched them quite a bit yesterday,” Natasha pointed out.

 

“He also hates me,” Steve reminded.

 

“See if Bucky will go with you,” Phil said.

 

“Is he allowed to be near innocent children?” Natasha asked bitterly, her mood immediately souring.

 

“I don’t care,” Phil said bluntly. “If Hill has a problem, he’s got a chaperone. The community service will look good on your reports.”

 

That’s how, three hours later, Steve found himself surrounded by happy, squealing children and yipping puppies, sitting next to Bucky. It was never something Steve thought might happen, even before waking up from the ice to find everyone he once knew was dead. And while Steve knew he shouldn’t, knew this Bucky sitting next to him was not the same as the man he used to know, he still couldn’t help comparing them.

 

Bucky from before would have run around with the kids, helped them chase the puppies and laughed. This Bucky held back, keeping out of the way, careful not to touch. There was a faint smile on his lips though, a faint shadow of who he used to be.

 

“Captain Rogers!” Teddy popped up beside him.

 

“Hi, Teddy,” Steve greeted.

 

Teddy beamed up at him, his bright blue eyes practically glowing with excitement. Steve paused for a moment. He vaguely remembered Teddy having blue eyes… He shrugged it off as Teddy turned to Bucky.

 

“Are you one of Captain Rogers’ friends?” Teddy asked.

 

Bucky’s eyes widened slightly at being addressed and slowly nodded.

 

“His name is Bucky,” Steve said when Bucky didn’t. “He’s my best friend.”

 

That got a slight smile out of Bucky. “Hey there, kid.”

 

“Are these your dogs?” Teddy asked, excited enough to practically vibrate.

 

Bucky shook his head. “They’re Hawkeye’s.”

 

“We thought it would be a good idea to let them make friends,” Steve said. “They don’t have parents either.”

 

Teddy’s eyes widened. “What about Lucky?”

 

“He kind of adopted them,” Steve said. Lucky wagged his tail from where he sat on the other side of Bucky. Teddy smiled at him, patting the dog on the head.

 

“Hey kid, think you can find some water for the dogs?” Bucky asked suddenly. “They’re getting thirsty.”

 

“I’ll go ask Ms. Gomez,” Teddy said with an enthusiastic nod. He ran off and Bucky leaned forward, resting his arms on his thighs as he watched the kid leave.

 

“I think that kid’s a mutant,” Bucky said, glancing over at Steve.

 

“What?” Steve asked, taken off guard.

 

“It was subtle,” Bucky explained, “but his height changed twice while he was talking to us, an inch or so. The shade of his hair was different when he ran off. His eyes are green now. He’s probably been able to shape shift since he was born, to be able to control it this well. The excitement is probably what has him slipping up this much.”

 

Steve frowned, following Bucky’s line of sight to where Teddy was talking with Ms. Gomez. Now that he was looking for it, Steve noticed the subtle changes in Teddy’s hair made every few seconds. Even his skin tone was changing slightly. It probably wasn’t something the average person could even notice but it seemed absolutely obvious to Steve’s enhanced eyes.

 

“Do you think they know?” Steve asked, nodding at Ms. Gomez.

 

Bucky shrugged. “Not sure. I’d go with no, though. There’s a lot of legislation involved with the placement of known mutant children.”

 

Steve wasn’t sure he wanted to know why Bucky knew that. But the situation with Teddy’s first foster home suddenly made sense.

 

“He seems ok, Steve,” Bucky said and Steve realized he was still frowning. “Looks like he’s got it kept secret.”

 

Steve nodded. He made sure he was smiling when Teddy came dashing back, a bowl of water in his hands. Half of it wound up sloshing out in the boy’s haste.

 

“Here you go, Lucky,” Teddy said, placing the bowl on the floor in front of the dog. Lucky licked at Teddy’s hand before slurping up the water.

 

“Thank you, Teddy,” Steve said.

 

“I’m gonna go play with the puppies now,” Teddy announced before dashing off.

 

“Nice kid,” Bucky commented, leaning back in his chair again.

 

“Yeah, he is,” Steve agreed.

 

Steve decided it was time to go an hour later when one of the puppies feel asleep on his foot. It took a great deal longer than it probably should have to round up all the rest of the puppies. Some of the kids tried to hide one in a toy box and another had somehow wedged itself under a bookshelf. Steve made another promise to see the kids again soon and no, he wasn’t sure if he’d bring the puppies with him.

 

“Can you come back tomorrow?” Teddy asked, his eyes flashing slightly greener.

 

Steve smiled down at him. “I’ll do my best.”

 

Bucky gave him an odd look and Steve chose to ignore him.

 

“You’re thinking about doing something stupid, aren’t you,” Bucky accused as they walked back to SHIELD HQ. He had Lucky’s leash in one of the hands stuffed in his jacket pocket while Steve carried the box of zonked out puppies under his arm.

 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Steve evaded.

 

“I’m remember more things, Steve, and that face you’re making is one of them,” Bucky said.

 

“I’m not making a face,” Steve insisted.

 

Bucky snorted. “Sure, punk.”

 

It was so much like Bucky’s old teasing Steve could almost forget everything they’d gone through.

 

.:.

 

Not every night saw the entire team together for dinner. There were social obligations, SHEILD missions, experiments that needed monitoring, global threats. Steve loved the time spent with his teammates, it was more time when he wasn’t alone to face the ghosts that haunted him. He appreciated the quiet nights, though, eating with one or two friends and not fighting to be heard over everyone.

 

This quiet night, a few of the others gathered in Steve’s apartment. The puppies were curled up in a pile in front of the couch, somehow managing to always be underfoot any time someone needed to walk by. Natasha and Bucky sat next to each other at the kitchen bar, Natasha stealing bits of salad from his bowl despite the one sitting in front of her. Sam was rummaging in the fridge for salad dressings, muttering something about people leaving empty bottles instead of throwing them away. Phil stood at the stove, cooking up potatoes and green beans to go with the stuffed pork chops finishing up in the oven. He was continually swatting Clint’s hands away from the pots and his ass.

 

Steve liked this, leaning against the wall nearby as he watched. It was almost like dinner at Bucky’s parents’ house back before, his siblings taking up space while his parents flirted shamelessly.

 

“Clint, no one wants to watch you sexually harass your boss,” Natasha said, throwing a slice of cucumber at his face.

 

He dodged it and grinned. “Don’t be jealous.”

 

Phil smacked Clint’s knuckles with the wooden spoon as he made for another grab. “I thought I banned you from the kitchen.”

 

“Wouldn’t want you to get lonely,” Clint teased.

 

Natasha and Sam both made gagging noises.

 

Fortunately for everyone’s appetites, the food was quickly done cooking. They made their plates and settled around Steve’s living room with a bottle of wine.

 

“So I’m guessing the Fuzzy Commandos had fun today,” Clint said around a mouthful of potatoes. He prodded one of the puppies with his foot, disturbing it enough to make it whine lazily.

 

“The kids loved them,” Steve said as Phil cuffed the back of Clint’s head. “They didn’t want me to take them home.”

 

“Leave them next time,” Phil commented dryly. “Pepper says if anyone winds up with fleas, she’s personally pushing Clint off the side of the Tower.”

 

“Tell her to give us fair warning, I bet we could make a killing selling seats for that,” Sam joked.

 

“Rude,” Clint said.

 

They spent the rest of their dinner joking and making fun of each other. Once their plates were cleaned, Natasha and Bucky disappeared to her floor to grab the cheesecake she’d bought earlier.

 

“Don’t even try to have a quickie while you’re gone!” Clint yelled after them as they left. “I’m not waiting thirty minutes for dessert!”

 

Phil rolled his eyes and sent him to clean the dishes. Sam volunteered to make sure Clint didn’t hurt himself, leaving Steve and Phil alone.

 

“Thanks again for taking in the puppies,” Phil said. “I’ll make sure Clint covers anything they might need.”

 

“Nah, it’s fine,” Steve waved him off. “They’re sweet.”

 

Phil _hmm_ ’d in response.

 

They were silent for a few moments, each lost in thought while Clint and Sam banged about in the kitchen. Steve found himself thinking of the day at the children’s’ home, of the kids, the puppies, of Teddy…

 

“Do you know anything about placement policies for orphaned mutant children?” Steve blurted out. He felt his cheeks heat with a blush as Phil looked at him, brow furrowed.

 

“That’s an oddly specific question.”

 

“There’s a boy at the children’s home,” Steve explained quickly. “His name is Teddy and Bucky thinks he might be a mutant.”

 

Phil’s eyebrows raised in surprise. “Do you think he’s in danger there?”

 

Steve shook his head. “I don’t think anyone there even knows about it. Bucky and I just barely noticed he can change different features of his body.”

 

“I can get in contact with Xavier’s school,” Phil offered. “They can take him in, make sure he knows how to use his abilities. He’ll be with other mutant children there.”

 

“That might be best for him,” Steve said hesitantly. “In case someone were to find out about him…”

 

He wasn’t sure how much better Xavier’s school would be for Teddy, another group home instead of a family that could provide him with personal care. Steve knew the mutant children- and adults- there were all extremely supportive and protective of each other and they all understood what it was like to be different… but Teddy had already been uprooted from his familiar life so many times. He was familiar with New York City, with the friends he’d made at the home.

 

Steve knew that wasn’t much of an argument. Teddy was a strong, friendly kid, he’d no doubt adapt to another drastic change in his life with ease. He’d be safer at Xavier’s, where no one would fear him for being a mutant, would know how to help him. If Steve was being truly honest, he may have gotten attached to the little boy.

 

Phil could see right through him, judging by the knowing expression on his face. Fortunately, Phil didn’t feel the need to call him out on it, like just about any other person in the Tower would have.

 


	9. A Week in the Life of Steve Rogers: Wednesday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's Wednesday! Just want to say thanks so much to all of you leaving me comments, they entertain me so much and I appreciate knowing how much everyone's enjoying things. 
> 
> This chapter is a lot shorter than the others this week (about half the word count) but don't worry, the rest of the week should make up for it.

Wednesday:

 

Morning greeted Steve with a pile of blessedly sleeping puppies, with no spots of pee except on the newspapers Sam had thought to put down the night before. His running shoes, however, were very much chewed on while he’d been sleeping.

 

Sam laughed the entire elevator ride to Clint’s floor.

 

“You know you can keep them in one of the extra rooms at night,” Sam said, still chuckling as they began the first lap of their run.

 

“I know but they just keep whining when I leave them alone,” Steve admitted.

 

“Aw, Captain America can’t stand up to a pair of puppy dog eyes?” Sam teased.

 

“There’s five of them, they put up a solid front,” Steve said defensively. “Even Doom couldn’t say no to them.”

 

Sam laughed. “You’re a pushover.”

 

Just for that, Steve made sure to pick up the pace enough to get Sam panting a lot sooner than usual.

 

“Don’t- you- say it,” Sam huffed out as he began to slow down. He glared through his sweat and Steve grinned.

 

“On your left.”

 

Sam’s swearing was nearly drowned out by Steve’s laughter.

 

Sam tried to get back at him when they met back up at the coffee shop.

 

“How much do I need to tip you for you to spit into his coffee?” He asked the girl behind the counter. She blinked at him in surprise, at a loss for words.

 

“Please ignore him, Cydney,” Steve said, reading her nametag quickly. He tried to shove Sam aside, not using anywhere near his full strength to humor him when he shoved back.

 

“Can you at least screw up his order somehow?” Sam persisted. “Anything at all, I mean look at him, he may look all sweet and innocent but trust me, he is the devil, and he does not deserve good coffee.”

 

Cydney laughed as they dissolved into a fit of elbowing and shoving. Steve and Sam both put twenties in the tip jar.

 

They returned to Steve’s apartment to find Natasha and Bucky sitting at the kitchen table, both cleaned up from their morning workout and waiting maybe a little too eagerly for them. Steve regarded them both cautiously as he put down their coffee and pastries.

 

“What did you do?” he asked instinctively.

 

“Have you checked your email?” Natasha asked.

 

Steve tried very hard to act innocent, even though his shoulders tensed. He should have known better than to think he could do anything secretly without Natasha noticing. Was she talking about the research he’d done last night on how to become a foster parent? He’d only meant to satisfy his curiosity but… well, at some point his hand had really just slipped and he filled out an online application form. He hadn’t thought he’d get a response so soon but of course, Natasha would know about it. And now she was going to call him out on it…

 

“Not recently,” Steve said hesitantly, trying to relax his shoulders and come off casual.

 

Natasha still noticed, raising an eyebrow at his odd reaction. Steve tried not to wince.

 

“Stark sent out the invitations to the party he’s planning for Jane’s arrival,” she said, still eyeing Steve for answers. “They’re… creative.”

 

“He sent yours through the snail mail,” Bucky said, flipping an envelope onto the table. “Asshole thinks he’s funny.”

 

Steve shot Sam a look. _This is what I’ve been talking about_.

 

“I wanna see this email,” Sam said, ignoring Steve and pulling out his phone. Natasha waved Steve and Bucky over as she huddled closer to Sam’s side to watch over his shoulder.

 

“You’ve shown it to me twice already,” Bucky complained.

 

“Don’t act like you’re too cool for comedy,” Natasha scolded. Bucky rolled his eyes at her but got up to join them as they all hunched over Sam’s phone.

 

The email opened up a black screen and Steve felt himself tensing in anticipation. The screen flashed with a video of lightning striking, accompanied by an unnecessarily loud crack of thunder. It was followed by a nonsensical series of images including odd pictures of cats, nature, and what looked like some very suggestive versions of the Avengers’ costumes. There was a booming, overly dramatic voice that went with them and Steve was very certain it was Tony’s.

 

“This Thursday, we reunite two star-crossed lovers who haven’t been banging nearly as much as two people as hot as they are should. Prepare yourselves for a momentous occasion at the best Wing Joint in New York.”

 

“Chicken wings are a restraint for a momentous occasion?” Steve asked.

 

“The dress code is whatever you all want to wear, Mr. Stark is rich and he can pay off any pissy manager-“

 

“Why is he referring to himself in third person?” Sam laughed.

 

“-Barton, however, has to wear sleeves, you freak. Also, Agent is only invited because Pepper insists. The usual Thursday Movie Night will be moved to Friday but Thor and Jane will most likely not be coming. Well, at least not to movie night, any other forms of coming or going are up to them.”

 

“Thor’s gonna kill him,” Sam commented.

 

It all ended with a series of bright lights and loud noises and a video of fireworks. Sam’s phone vibrated in his hand along with it.

 

“He somehow figured out how to get my laptop to do that too,” Natasha told them as they moved away.

 

“That was just weird,” Sam said and Bucky nodded in agreement.

 

Steve eyed the envelope on the table warily. “How do you think that invitation translates into a written letter?”

 

Everyone else looked over as well.

 

“No dibs!” Natasha exclaimed, putting a finger on her nose. Sam and Bucky followed suit before Steve could figure out what was going on.

 

“Really?” he asked of their collective lack of maturity.

 

“Of the four of us, you are the most likely to survive anything Stark hid in there,” Sam said unhelpfully.

 

“Tony wouldn’t put anything dangerous-“ Steve stopped mid-sentence as he realized what he was actually saying. “Jarvis?”

 

“Sir has asked I not reveal any elements of the invitation,” Jarvis informed. “However, I can assure you there is nothing harmful in its contents.”

 

Steve, funnily enough, wasn’t very reassured. The others ducking around the corner and peeking around the wall really didn’t help. Steve braced himself, picked up the envelope, and very carefully opened it.

 

.:.

 

“Why is there sparkles in your ear?” Teddy asked, looking at Steve oddly as he paused in his coloring.

 

Steve grimaced. It was nearly six hours later and he was still shedding the glittery confetti Tony’s card had spit out on him. Steve could still hear the sound of his former best friends laughing their asses off.

 

“Iron man wants to have a party,” Steve explained. “He got a bit carried away with the confetti.”

 

“Is it a birthday party?” Teddy asked eagerly.

 

Steve shook his head, ignoring the glitter that fell from his hair. “A friend is coming to live with us so it’s a like a Welcome Home party.”

 

Steve barely suppressed a wince when he remembered Tony’s last Welcome to the Tower party, when all of the Avengers finally caved and agreed to move in. They still weren’t allowed anywhere near the local bowling alley.

 

Teddy smiled at him before turning back to his coloring. Steve observed the boy’s hair change from pale yellow to goldenrod. The other kids around them didn’t even notice.

 

“Hey, Teddy,” Steve said casually, picking up a yellow crayon and starting to draw. “What color are your eyes?”

 

Teddy froze for a second, his hand stilling. He blinked and Steve wondered if he was changing his eye color.

 

“They’re blue,” Teddy finally answered, blinking at him as he leaned forward with a smile. “See?”

 

Steve nodded. “I thought they were green yesterday.”

 

Teddy’s eyes widen with fear and Steve immediately felt like the biggest asshole on the planet. He reached out to reassure the boy but Teddy flinched back.

 

“You’re not supposed to know,” Teddy whispered. His eyes flashed several different colors as he looked around them. “It’s my secret. Mommy says it has to be secret.”

 

“Teddy, it’s ok,” Steve said quietly. “It can still be your secret.”

 

“Please don’t tell anyone,” Teddy begged and Steve felt even more like shit for terrifying the kid so badly. “Sally told her mommy and they got scared and they didn’t want me anymore. No one’s gonna want me if you tell, _please_.”

 

“I swear, I won’t tell anyone,” Steve insisted. He slowly and gently reached out to brush a tear from Teddy’s cheek.

 

“Not ‘sposed to swear,” teddy said around a loud sniffle.

 

Steve smiled softly. “Well, I pinky promise then and Captain America always keeps a pinky promise.” He held out his hand, pinky extended and waited.

 

Teddy looked at his hand for a few minutes before reaching out and hooking his pinky around Steve’s. “I didn’t mean to tell you,” he whispered.

 

“I know,” Steve reassured him. “You did a very good job keeping it a secret. I’m sorry I figured it out and scared you.”

 

Teddy wiped at his nose with the sleeve of his shirt. “Ok.”

 

“Ok?” Steve repeated.

 

Teddy nodded. He quietly went back to his coloring. Steve just sat wth him, their own little corner of quite in a room of loud children.

 

“Mommy could do it too,” Teddy said after a while. “Make herself look different. She said we were special.”

 

Steve nodded encouragingly when Teddy looked up at him.

 

“She said I couldn’t try animals but if it was just us, we could make ourselves look silly.” Teddy smiled a bit before his face turned downward. “I can’t make silly face here.”

 

Steve frowned slightly. “I’m sorry about that. But you’re ok here?”

 

Teddy nodded. “Ms. Gomez let us have cookies before bed time last night.”

 

Steve smiled as Teddy quickly changed the subject and told him about all the fun things the kids got to do sometimes.

 

.:.

 

“So how was Teddy today?”

 

Steve looked over to Phil in the Quinjet. The whole team was bruised and dirty, on the way back from taking on a mad scientist and his army of undead pets in Maine. Steve was aware of some sort of pop culture irony related to the mission based on Tony and Clint’s incredulous muttering.

 

“He was doing good,” Steve answered. “He told me about his secret.”

 

Phil raised his eyebrows.

 

“Well, I accidently scared him into telling me,” Steve admitted. “He cried and I still feel awful about it.”

 

“Cap made someone cry?” Clint asked, plopping down into the seat next to Phil. His left arm was pinned to his chest with a make shift sling.

 

“Shouldn’t you be up front?” Phil asked without answering him.

 

“Nat keeps replaying Stark’s invitation and I’m not allowed to do anything to make her stop because she can take me in a fight,” Clint said with a shrug. “I even considered crash landing the quinjet but all that will do is wind me stuck in a hospital bed while she puts the damn thing on repeat without a scratch on her.”

 

Phil rolled his eyes.

 

“But seriously, who did you make cry?” Clint asked again.

 

Steve scratched the back of his head. “A six year old.”

 

Clint whistled. “There’s some bad karma coming your way, Cap. Trust me. I accidently made an entire kindergarten class cry and we’ve all seen how my life is going now.”

 

“You cannot use karma as an excuse for your poor life choices,” Phil corrected him. Clint stuck out his tongue. “Speaking of which, if you try to fist bump the Hulk again after a mission, I will leave you in medical until your broken bones heal.”

 

Steve chuckled as they dissolved into thinly veiled flirting. He looked out the window as Thor flew by, his face set in a slight scowl. Tony was sitting in the cargo hold, repairing his damaged armor. Thor kept insisting he’d only let Mjolnir slip in his attempt to rid Tony of the animals crawling all over him. And a second time when he thought he saw one coming up behind him. And a third time when Thor needed to move Tony out of the way of an oncoming Chihuahua. No one asked for an excuse about the fourth time.

 

Tony really had been asking for it with that email.


	10. A Week in the Life of Steve Rogers: Thursday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I am so so sorry this is late, guys. Flo came to visit yesterday and she brought her best friends, cramping and nausea with her. So I didn't get to type up the chapter. Today's chapter isn't typed up either and I have work in about an hour so it probably won't be posted until tomorrow. Again, really sorry :(  
> Also, again, I have no idea how the foster system works, I'm making it up to fit my plot...
> 
> Prompt:  
> Well, Steve would like nothing more than to adopt this kid but there's a shit ton of red tape about a superhero adopting due to the dangers of their lives and added to the fact that it appears he might be a mutant, there's just too many factors in the way.  
> That's what Steve tells himself when he's denied.

Thursday:

 

Sam was quiet during their morning run. He usually was after a night spent at the VA with group counseling. Steve let him have his silence, his own thoughts chasing around the idea of possibly fostering Teddy. He was still waiting for a response to his application, even though he knew it was supposed to take at least a week. Maybe he’d go by the home again, before going out for Jane’s party, talk to Teddy some more. He just wanted to make sure the kid was ok.

 

They got their donuts and coffee without saying much of anything to each other, returning to the Tower in companionable silence. There was no sign of Natasha or Bucky in Steve’s apartment when they got back.

 

“Maybe they got enough of a workout last night,” Sam joked, wagging his eyebrows. Steve blushed and refused to look at him as he went to feed the puppies.

 

“So do you know why Stark picked a wing joint for Jane’s party?” Sam asked around a mouthful of powdered donut when he returned to the kitchen. The puppies fel over themselves to follow Steve out of the spare room.

 

Steve shrugged. “Knowing him, I would have assumed somewhere ridiculously expensive and fancy.”

 

“I mean I’m good with either, it’s free food,” Sam pointed out. “This way we get to actually eat something filling instead of those fancy, one bite per plate entrees that cost more than my mama’s house.”

 

“When did that become a thing?” Steve asked. “I thought the point of the war was so people didn’t have to pay money to starve anyway.”

 

“I have no idea,” Sam said with a snort. “I grew up on good southern soul food. Ask Stark, who knows how often he eats like that. Probably the reason he’s so short.”

 

“He _would_ know something about _starving_ ,” Steve muttered sarcastically. He bit into a bear claw as Sam stared at him, obviously amused. “What?”

 

“Nothing,” Sam said. “Just hope you’re not about to start another Stark-rant.”

 

“I do not rant about him,” Steve protested.

 

“Of course not,” Sam placated. “You can only just go on for hours about him.”

 

“Well, he can be annoying,” Steve defended. “But he is being pretty nice, treating Jane out like this, letting her stay here to be closer to Thor.”

 

“He’s subjecting her to the entire team just a few hours after a very long flight,” Sam pointed out.

 

“I thought you didn’t want me to complain about him,” Steve said.

 

“It’s not the most productive way you could fixate on him, no,” Sam commented.

 

Steve frowned. “What do you mean by that?”

 

“Pardon the interruption,” Jarvis said before Sam could respond. “Agent Romanoff has asked for your assistance on her floor. It would appear Sargent Barnes in in some distress.”

 

Steve was racing out of the apartment before Jarvis even finished talking. The elevator was open and waiting for them and Steve instinctively hit the button for Natasha’s floor, cracking the button and jamming it in place. He didn’t even care. He was practically bouncing on his toes, itching for the elevator to hurry. Beside him, Sam stood calm but ready.

 

Natasha was already waiting for them outside the elevator. She looked upset, he mouth set in a slight frown and he hair disheveled.

 

“What’s wrong?” Steve asked as he practically barreled past her into the apartment.

 

“James had a nightmare,” Natasha explained softly, following Steve at a much slower pace. “It took him a while to wake up from it properly.”

 

Something in her voice made Steve pause and turn around.

 

“Nat, you’re bleeding,” Sam said, reaching out for her wrist.

 

Natasha shrugged him off, hiding her arm behind her back. “I’m fine. James won’t let me anywhere near him and I might have broken his arm.”

 

Steve swore under his breath. “He’s not going to want to talk to me.”

 

“I’ll see if I can help him,” Sam offered. “Why don’t you two do something about the blood dripping onto the nice hardwood floor.” He gave Natasha a stern look before heading down the hallway.

 

“Last door on the right,” Natasha instructed. They watched until Sam disappeared into the room and shut the door behind him.

 

Steve slowly looked back to Natasha. “Where’s the first aid kit?”

 

“Kitchen,” Natasha told him, leading the way. Her shoulders were slightly slumped but her stride was no less confident. She sat neatly in a chair and gestured toward the cabinet under the sink.

 

“So, you wanna tell me where the injuries are or are we gonna play your favorite guessing game?” Steve asked as he pulled out the first aid kit.

 

Natasha rolled her eyes. “Says the man who hid half a broken rib cage for three days.”

 

Steve smiled sheepishly and dragged a chair out to sit in front of her. “No one would have noticed if they’d started healing correctly.”

 

“You had a punctured lung,” Natasha reminded him.

 

“And you’re bleeding on the kitchen table,” Steve said. “Now tell me where.”

 

Natasha sighed and held out her arm. There was a gash across her forearm and along her elbow, like she’d tried to defend her face from a knife. Steve made no comment but he could piece together what happened. His eyes glanced toward her neck where he could see the beginnings of hand shaped bruises.

 

“I tried to wake him up,” Natasha said softly while Steve began cleaning her up. “I used to be able to, when… before. I wasn’t expecting him to attack me.”

 

Steve remained silent. Natasha flinched as he pressed an antiseptic wipe along the wounds.

 

“He got a hold of one of my knives,” Natasha continued, getting agitated. “I don’t know when he took it, I haven’t noticed it missing before.”

 

“Hill won’t like that,” Steve commented.

 

Natasha looked at him sharply. “She doesn’t have to know.”

 

“She’s not going to believe someone cut you this badly by accident,” Steve said. “She’d be the one having to fill out the medical paperwork for whatever idiot screwed up that badly. We can just explain the nightmare situation, tell her he grabbed a knife you had hidden under your pillow.”

 

Natasha continued to frown as Steve finished wrapping the bandages. Sam and Bucky walked in before he finished. Bucky kept his head down, his hair covering his face. His hands were clenched at his sides and Steve wished there was a way he could comfort him.

 

“I’m going to take Bucky for his therapy session,” Sam announced. “It might be a good idea if you work from home, Nat.”

 

“Probably,” Natasha agreed, her eyes locked firmly on Bucky, tracking his every move.

 

.:.

 

Steve found himself wandering down to the garage later in the day, after getting some paperwork done and finally checking his email. He needed something to do with his hands and sketching in the common room wasn’t working. Clint and Thor barging in to start a no holds barred Mario Cart marathon really didn’t help. Steve understood it was a ploy to keep Thor occupied until Jane’s flight came in but he didn’t much feel like joining in. Nor did he want to endure the noise they were generating between the sound effects of Rainbow Road and their own creative swearing about cheating.

 

He’d wandered in search of Natasha, wondering if she’d also found a distraction from the morning incident. He found her on Bruce’s floor, the pair of them moving through a series of yoga positions. Steve knew from past experience that yoga didn’t help him relax so much as wind him up further. The stillness made him antsy.

 

So he decided his motorcycle needed a tune up. It had been a while since he’d done any work on his bike and he desperately needed a distraction before he wandered to the gym and destroyed any more equipment. Of course he would find Tony there first, music blasting loudly as he messed about with one of his cars.

 

“Don’t you have your own workshop?” Steve asked as he turned down the music at the wall panel.

 

Tony glared up at him. “I’ve told you not to touch my music.”

 

“I didn’t hear music,” Steve joked.

 

“Haha, yeah, that one never gets old,” Tony deadpanned. “Unlike you. Didn’t you used to ride dinosaurs?”

 

“That joke isn’t as funny when you remember we actually fought mutated undead dinosaurs a few months ago,” Steve pointed out.

 

Tony waved him off. “You know what I mean. You’re old ears just can’t handle today’s music… well, today’s music sucks but this stuff is classic.”

 

Steve nodded, pulling out a set of tools from the nearby toolbox and moving over to his Harley. “And why can’t you listen to it in your workshop?”

 

“And deprive you of my pleasant company?” Tony asked.

 

“Whoever told you that lied to you,” Steve commented.

 

“Wow, rude,” Tony said. “I see how it is, then. If you don’t want me around, tell the scary lady banging your not-dead best friend to learn how to drive stick shift, she’s fucking up the nice cars I so graciously let her borrow.”

 

Steve huffed a laugh. “I think I’d rather suffer your company.”

 

“Uh-huh. Just for that- Jarvis babe, blast the jams and revoke Captain Fussy Pants’ volume control.”

 

“Certainly, sir,” Jarvis said, sounding resigned. The music returned, though not quite as loud as before, probably Jarvis taking pity on Steve. He pushed the music to the back of his mind and started on the Harley.

 

It was probably a full fifteen minutes before Tony started hovering over his shoulder.

 

“I can make it run faster if you just let me tweak a few things,” Tony offered.

 

“You’re not gonna tweak a few things,” Steve said offhandedly as he loosened a bolt. “This is a classic, Tony, it doesn’t need any of your modern upgrades.”

 

“What if I promise to only mess with the insides,” Tony wheedled. “I’ll just add a few subtle things, keep the outside look the same.”

 

“If I had any faith in your ability to be subtle, I’d consider it,” Steve said.

 

“You wear a spangly outfit and carry a giant bull’s-eye on your arm,” Tony objected.

 

“You put your name on the side of a skyscraper,” Steve pointed out.

 

“I changed the name.” Tony crossed his arms over his chest. “I can be humble.”

 

“That’s very impressive,” Steve placated. “You’re still not touching my bike.” He looked up to see Tony still pouting at him. “Don’t you have a car to fix?”

 

“I finished that like ten minutes ago,” Tony stated simply. He slowly reached out to grab a wrench from beside Steve.

 

“No touching,” Steve warned, gently smacking his hand away.

 

“Funsucker,” Tony grumbled. “See if I let you come out with us tonight.”

 

“Natasha really enjoyed your invitation, by the way,” Steve said. “Not so sure Thor did.”

 

“Pepper already gave me a very long lecture about being appropriate,” Tony said, rubbing his arm where a large bruise peaked out from beneath his shirtsleeve. “So did Rhodey because she called him like a tattle tale and every thing, so you really don’t have to do a follow up.”

 

Steve raised an eyebrow at him.

 

“I told the big guy I was sorry, I will tell Jane I am sorry when she gets here, and I even put Agent back at the table with all of us instead of across the restaurant nt like I wanted to,” Tony informed him. “The lesson was learned after the second time the giant hammer hit me in the head.”

 

“You know Pepper wants Phil there so she’s not the only one dealing with babysitting all of us,” Steve said.

 

“Doesn’t mean I have to like it,” Tony mumbled. “Oh, J, send some roses or chocolates or something… you know what, send her the advance apology spa day gift basket before we all head out. She’s gonna need it. And make sure the follow up apology basket is ready for her tomorrow.”

 

“You know, it’s a wonder you and Pepper didn’t work out,” Steve said.

 

“I’m sensing a great deal of unneeded sass in that comment and it is not appreciated,” Tony said, pointing a finger at him. “Just for that, you’re going to tell me why you’re upset.”

 

“I’m not upset,” Steve denied too quickly.

 

“Right,” Tony said. “And you only ever mess with your bike when you’re upset and trying to distract yourself.”

 

Steve pressed his lips into a tight line. “Just a coincidence.”

 

“Sure it is,” Tony said. “Now, you made fun of my failed relationship with Pep, you now have to tell me what’s got your panties in a bunch.”

 

Steve raised an unimpressed eyebrow at him.

 

“Hey, I’m not the one who makes the rules,” Tony defended.

 

“I’m not so sure that’s how it works,” Steve deflected.

 

“New way of the 21st century,” Tony said. “Now, go on, I’m all ears.”

 

Steve shook his head. “I’m fine, Tony.”

 

“Yeah sure, I believe you,” Tony said. “Let’s pretend you’re really not, though.”

 

“And that you’re a good listener?” Steve shot back.

 

Tony nodded enthusiastically. “Exactly.”

 

Steve sighed. “You’re not going to let this go, are you?”

 

“Probably not,” Tony conceded. “I’m a nosy gossip, ask Pep. And Barton, he’s my gossip frenemy.”

 

Steve could only blink at that. Tony waved him on encouragingly. “I got an email from the local foster agency.”

 

Tony looked at him, mouth agape. “Try that one again.”

 

“I sent in an application so I could be approved as a foster parent,” Steve explained.

 

Tony blinked then shook his head. “Nope, still won’t compute.”

 

“Tony,” Steve admonished.

 

“Sorry,” Tony said. “Just trying to wrap my head around your attempt at being Daddy Warbucks.”

 

Steve frowned at him. “What?”

 

“Oh god, right, you haven’t seen that movie yet,” Tony muttered. “J, put both Annie movies on the movie night list. Now, back to you.”

 

“It’s not that big a deal,” Steve said, slowly piecing his bike back together, avoiding looking up at Tony. “There’s a kid’s home I volunteer at-“

 

“Of course you volunteer at a friggin orphanage,” Tony interrupted.

 

“I thought we were pretending you were a good listener,” Steve chided.

 

Tony mimed zipping his lips.

 

“There’s a kid there, his name is Teddy… I just thought I would put in an application, see what I would need to do.” Steve shrugged. “They sent back an email this morning. It says I can’t qualify.”

 

“Did you tell them you’re Captain America?” Tony asked incredulously. “I don’t think there’s anyone more qualified to look after a kid.”

 

“Pretty sure that was the problem,” Steve said. “Apparently, I’m have too high a profile and live too dangerously for them to consider me a suitable placement.”

 

“That’s some bullshit,” Tony scoffed. “If pop stars can import kids directly from Africa, there is no reason you shouldn’t be able to pick one up from down the street.”

 

“He’s a child, Tony, not a piece of fruit,” Steve said. “There’s a lot of factors for them to consider, plus Phil’s contacting Xavier-“

 

“Wait, the kid’s a mutant?” Tony asked. Steve nodded. “Shit, you have got to press harder on this. That kid- well, no kid, really- deserves to suffer Scott Summers or Wolverine, it’s cruel and quite frankly, probably some form of child endangerment.”

 

Steve bit back a smile at Tony’s joke. “I’m not sure how much sway I’ll have if Captain America couldn’t impress them.”

 

Tony waved a hand. “Please, I can make any red tape disappear. You keep trying, I’ll do what I can to meddle.”

 

“Please don’t do anything overtly illegal,” Steve said with a frown.

 

Tony never responded.

 

.:.

 

Tony, Thor, Phil, and Pepper left early to pick up Jane and Darcy from the airport. The rest of the team made their own way to the restraint. They were all dressed casually, Steve and Bruce in khakis and button ups, Clint, Natasha, and Sam in jeans and t-shirts. Clint’s even had sleeves, just as Tony requested. The only person missing was Bucky, who had insisted he didn’t feel like leaving the Tower.

 

They all waited outside until Tony’s limo pulled up. Thor jumped out first, holding the door open and holding out his hand to help out first Pepper and then a young woman Steve recognized from pictures as Jane Foster. Thor’s attention was completely absorbed in her as they stepped away from the limo.

 

“No, I’m fine, Thor, I don’t need any help getting out of here, thanks for offering,” a very sarcastic voice called as one Darcy Lewis slid over to the open door. Steve immediately stepped forward to help her out. She took hold of his hands, slowly looked up his arm, and gave him a smile that made him feel slightly uncomfortable. “You’re hot.”

 

Steve felt his whole face blush as he pulled her to her feet and stepped out of the way so Phil and Tony could get out of the car.

 

“I’m sitting next to you,” Darcy decided, wrapping her arm around Steve’s.

 

Steve almost immediately regretted that decision as soon as they all sat down. Darcy was nice and fun to talk to but she was handsy and it only got worse once she started downing cocktails. She was all but petting Steve’s biceps and he wasn’t sure how aware of it she was. She kept doing the same to Thor on her other side but the thunder god was too caught up in whatever Jane was talking about to notice. Across the table, Sam kept snickering at him. It probably wouldn’t be appropriate to throw a garlic knot at his head but Steve wasn’t too sure he cared. Next to him, Natasha was trying not to laugh at the scowl Phil kept shooting at Darcy. Steve knew Phil had done his best to get as far away from her as he could, dragging Clint along with him.

 

Tony, Bruce, and Jane were in the middle of scientific debate, talking around Pepper until she decided to move into the empty seat next to Sam.

 

“And Tony thought Jane would want some girl talk,” Pepper said with a shake of her head and a generous sip if her wine.

 

Darcy snorted, leaning forward into Steve’s space to talk to her. “Yeah, Jane doesn’t do girl talk when there’s science to do. Which is always.”

 

Steve leaned back in his chair to avoid accidently brushing against Darcy’s breasts. Natasha unhelpfully elbowed him in the side and Sam wagged his eyebrows at him.

 

“And it sucks when I’m surrounded by as much hotness as I currently am with no one to talk to about it,” Darcy continued, waving her hand to indicate the entire table.

 

Pepper smiled at her. “Well, if you’ll listen to how stupid certain members of this table are,-“ a chorus of indignant _hey’_ s came from both end of the table- “I’m sure Natasha and I can girl talk with you.”

 

“Here, here,” Natasha said, raising her glass.

 

“Hey, no,” Tony said as Pepper and Darcy raised their own glasses. “You three are not allowed to team up, it’s against the rules.”

 

Pepper raised an eyebrow at him. “If you’re allowed to have your ‘science bros’ club, I’m allowed to make friends too.”

 

“And I agree with that, so long as it’s not them,” Tony said. “Barton, back me up, this is in your best interests too.”

 

“Nat can make friends with anyone she wants,” Clint said, keeping eye contact with the red head. “And I’m not just saying that because she could kick me in very uncomfortable places with her very pointy heels.”

 

Natasha smirked at him over her wine glass.

 

“That’s cheating!” Tony exclaimed.

 

Steve shook his head as other people started glancing over. “Indoor voices, please.”

 

“This unholy alliance is going to damage my sex life,” Tony protested.

 

“You don’t have a sex life,” Bruce commented casually before returning to his conversation with Jane. Tony gaped at him while the table erupted with laughter.


	11. A Week in the Life of Steve Rogers: Friday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And here's Friday! Another short one, mostly just to move the plot along. The week ends on the Saturday chapter so look forward to the exciting conclusion tomorrow!

Friday:

 

It was Steve’s turn to be silent as they began their morning run. He really didn’t want to talk about the problems with Bucky, how he’d decided to sleep on Steve’s couch rather than in Natasha’s apartment, how he wouldn’t talk to any of them, how they still had to report to Hill and tell her everything Bucky had done. Steve didn’t know how to keep the conversation away from it so he kept his mouth shut.

 

Steve ran a few more laps than usual after breaking away from Sam, trying to get his loud thoughts to settle down and shut up. He gave up after his sixth lap around the park and circled back to the coffee shop. Sam was already sipping at his coffee, his feet propped up on one of the metal tables outside.

 

“So how mad do you think Natasha is gonna be after your meeting with Hill?” Sam asked, pushing another cup of coffee towards Steve. “Because if _you’re_ this upset over it, I’m heading for a fallout shelter.”

 

Steve shrugged. “She’s not happy now.”

 

“Not sure who I feel worse for,” Sam said, getting to his feet. “You, Hill, or the first unfortunate intern to land in Nat’s sights.”

 

Steve didn’t respond, went back to mulling over the report his report for Hill. He thought about the parts he was leaving out, the half lies he would tell to keep Bucky out of SHIELD’s custody. They all seemed flimsy and obvious, even with Natasha’s careful phrasing.

 

Hill saw right through them both.

 

“You’re telling me your recent injuries have nothing to do with the Winter Soldier,” Hill said, staring Natasha down. “He didn’t get confused during one of your sparring sessions or after this night terror you mentioned?”

 

“No, sir,” Natasha responded evenly.

 

“But you’re not going to explain how you managed to get bruising around your neck.”

 

Natasha remained silent.

 

Hill sighed shortly. “If you refuse to include every incident that occurs, in its entirety, I will be forced to consider your reports inconclusive and I will conduct my own investigations with Barnes under surveillance here in SHIELD headquarters.”

 

Natasha bristled at the threat but made no move to change her statement.

 

“We included everything relevant to your concerns, Assistant Director,” Steve said, face blank.

 

Hill gave him a look that told him she believed absolutely none of what he’d said. “I’ll accept what you’ve reported for now. Please be sure not to forget anything in the future.”

 

Natasha took that for a dismissal and stood, silently storming out of the office.

 

“I expect your next report on Friday,” Hill told Steve, looking back down at the files in her hands. Steve nodded and followed after Natasha.

 

.:.

 

Steve found himself standing outside of Tony’s empty workshop, freshly showered and carrying a tray of sandwiches. He felt sore after letting Natasha take out her frustrations on him for half an hour before Clint showed up. Steve felt bad for leaving Clint to deal with her but according to him, there was a set protocol for keeping Natasha from killing everyone when she was this upset. So Steve left them to it and went back to the Tower to wash the sweat and blood off of him.

 

He probably should have asked Jarvis if Tony was even in the workshop, Steve realized, looking in through the glass at the darkened room, but the thought hadn’t even occurred to him. He just wanted an escape from all the tension brewing upstairs in the gym and the yappy puppies underfoot in his apartment.

 

With a sigh, Steve punched in his access code and stepped inside. The lights turned on automatically, illuminating piles of machinery in various states of chaos. Every horizontal surface was covered with wires or tools or pieces of the Iron Man armor. There were even a dozen or so arrows embedded in the walls that Steve really didn’t want to know about.

 

Dummy rolled forward from his corner of the workshop to greet him, rubbing against Steve’s side and making a grab for the tray.

 

Steve quickly moved it out of the bot’s reach. “Nope, sorry, I don’t want you to spill again.”

 

Dummy lowered his head with a sad whirring noise.

 

“Mind showing me where Tony hid my art supplies?” Steve asked, hoping to distract the dejected little robot. It seemed to work when Dummy raised his head again and pulled gently at the hem of Steve’s shirt. He followed the bot to the far corner where there was less clutter and a worn, oil stained couch. Dummy released him and rolled over to a nearby cabinet. Inside were a few sketchbooks, a tin of colored pencils, a box of charcoal, and some loose pencils and erasers. Dummy turned his camera on Steve expectantly, claw opening and closing.

 

“Can I have the spiral sketchbook and some pencils?” Steve asked, setting the tray on the coffee table. Dummy chirped, placed the pencils and an eraser on top of the sketchbook, and slowly rolled over to Steve. He was doing pretty well until he ran into the table. The pencils went flying, rolling under the couch while the eraser bounced off Steve’s chest and landed somewhere in the grimy cushions. Steve bit his tongue to keep from laughing.

 

“Thank you,” he said as he took the sketchbook Dummy pressed against his arm. The bot practically beamed with pride before reaching down to search for the pencils.

 

“Don’t worry, I’ll get them,” Steve said, getting down on his hands and knees. He remembered a bit too just how infrequently Tony cleaned anything. There were a few massive dust bunnies (Steve swore they kept moving whenever he glanced away from them), some screwdrivers, nuts, bolts, and what looked like a shoe Lucky had gotten a hold of. Steve reached underneath the couch for his pencils, hoping the super soldier serum would be enough to fight off whatever diseases might be breeding in the filth.

 

“Now _that’s_ a sight I wouldn’t mind seeing more often,” Tony said from behind him. Steve jumped in surprise, banging his head on the side of the couch. Tony gave an aborted laugh before attempting to hide it in a cough.

 

“How long have you been standing there?” Steve asked, wiping dirt off his clothes.

 

“Long enough to enjoy the view,” Tony said with a wink.

 

Steve tried very hard to ignore the strange fluttering in his chest as his ears burned red. Tony flirted with everyone, Steve reminded himself. This was nothing that unusual or new.

 

“I brought down some lunch,” Steve said lamely, getting off his knees.

 

Tony grinned. “You mean breakfast.”

 

“Did you actually get some sleep last night?” Steve asked.

 

“Barely,” Tony said, gesturing with his hands. “The thought of Pepper and Natasha teaming up again is the stuff of nightmares. Last time it happened they nearly cut out and sold my liver.”

 

“I doubt they could get much for it,” Steve joked as he settled on the couch.

 

“Alcoholic jokes, that’s original,” Tony mocked. He grabbed the tray off the coffee table. “These are mine now, rude people don’t get to enjoy nice sandwiches.”

 

“Half of those have mustard and relish on them,” Steve warned.

 

Tony dropped the tray with a hiss. “You are disgusting. Which ones aren’t made with all of that nastiness, you heathen?”

 

“The ones with the crusts cut off, you child,” Steve countered.

 

Tony huffed primly, grabbed a few sandwiches, and stalked off, Dummy trailing close behind.

 

Steve rolled his eyes. How Sam, or anyone really, could think he might be remotely attracted to such an immature man-child… Shaking his head, Steve leaned back and cracked open his sketchbook. He’d been using the spiral one mostly in Tony’s workshop, when he needed to get away from the other Avengers. Down here, Tony was the least annoying he ever was, absorbed in his latest project. The noise of welding, machinery, and Black Sabbath were somehow far more soothing than the tranquility tapes Bruce played during his yoga sessions.

 

Instead of flipping to the next blank page, Steve leafed through his old sketches, wondering what he’d forgotten about drawing before. There were a couple cartoon doodles of Dummy and his antics, some still life drawings of the clutter in the shop, a few concepts of random shapes and swirls for potential paintings. Mostly, there were sketches of Tony. His hands piecing together a delicate machine. His arms as he lifted something heavy, muscles bulging under smooth skin. There were an embarrassing number of drawings featuring parts of Tony’s face, his eyebrows turned down as his eyes focused intensely, the way his hair stuck to the sweat on his forehead, his nose bunched up as he tried to figure out why something wasn’t working, his tongue caught between his teeth, his lips.

 

Steve felt the heat of a blush on his cheeks and he glanced over his shoulders. It never hurt to be paranoid living with a couple super spies. He held the sketchbook a bit closer to his himself anyway before starting a drawing. He focused on the dismantled gauntlet from the Iron Man suit laying on a nearby shelf, taking in the exposed wires and circuitry. He got down to a basic outline, filling in just a few minor details before his eyes started drifting towards Tony.

 

Next thing he knew, Steve was drawing Tony’s face set in a slight scowl as he tried to work around Dummy’s “help.”

 

“Seriously, is it too much to ask for you to stay up here?” Tony reprimanded. He moved around, directing the bot’s arm himself. “Oh, am I in your way now? Sorry, my bad.”

 

Steve grinned at the affectionate way Tony addressed his bot. He realized he’d stopped drawing and started staring when Tony looked up and met his eye. Steve ducked his head guiltily. He pretended to go back to drawing.

 

“You didn’t go see your kids today?” Tony asked. Steve snapped his head back up to see Tony wiping his hands on a dirty rag that seemed to be making more of a mess than helping.

 

“What?” Steve hadn’t really heard him.

 

“Don’t you usually hang out at the kids’ home after your done with SHIELD’s bullshit?” Tony moved around his workbench to stand in front of his computer. “Not quite sure how you can go from SHIELD’s screaming brats to actual screaming brats, but you know, to each his own and what not.”

 

Steve shook his head. “I needed a place to unwind a bit today.”

 

Tony turned a skeptical look on him. “And you choose my workshop?”

 

Steve just shrugged. There probably wasn’t any point in explaining how Tony had started driving Steve crazy in entirely new ways.

 

“Sir,” Jarvis said suddenly. “The site you are attempting to access is on a secured government server.”

 

“Since when have you been my moral compass?” Tony asked, his fingers flying over the keyboard. Steve wanted to capture that quick, frantic movement on paper and- wait, what?

 

“If you proceed to hack into another federal database, I have instructions from Ms. Potts to contact Colonel Rhodes.”

 

“C’mon Jarvis, don’t be a tattletale,” Tony whined.

 

“What are you doing?” Steve asked, putting down his sketchbook.

 

“Nothing horribly illegal and nothing to call Rhodey about!” Tony shouted at Jarvis. “What are you doing? Don’t put the call up on the screen, how am I supposed to see what I’m hacking?”

 

“Tony,” Steve warned sternly.

 

“Calm down, Spangles,” Tony said, bringing back the usual annoyance Steve felt whenever he spoke condescendingly. “I’m just working on getting your little orphan Annie for you.”

 

“What?” Steve demanded.

 

“Ok, yeah, we are so watching that movie tonight, even if Rhodey is still chewing me out,” Tony said. The call went through and there was a put upon sigh from the other end.

 

“What are you doing now?” Rhodey asked without greeting.

 

“Honey Bear, baby, platonic love of my life, how are you?” Tony evaded.

 

“You have five seconds, Tony, before I blacklist you from ever government conference for the rest of forever and that includes any involving Hammer.”

 

“Aw, how am I supposed to mock him properly if I’m not there?” Tony asked.

 

“One,” Rhodey counted.

 

“Alright, calm down,” Tony placated. “Steve here wants to adopt a little mutant kid, I’m just helping make the red tape melt away with my usual finesse.”

 

Tony flashed Steve a brilliant smile and Steve didn’t even hear Rhodey’s angry response. His heart stuttered in his chest and his breath caught in a way it hadn’t since before the serum. Oh, he was so screwed and Sam was so right.

 

Steve had a very serious thing for Tony.


	12. A Week in the Life of Steve Rogers: Saturday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This took longer to type up than it should have... The prompt is gonna be at the end of this chapter so you guys won't get spoiled cause some good stuff happens in this chapter ;)

Saturday:

 

Saturdays meant waking up earlier than usual for the morning run. It also meant running alone, since Sam would rather sleep in as much as possible before dealing with the insanity that was breakfast with the whole team. Steve didn’t really mind, for once, wrapped up as he was in his latest epiphany.

 

Steve had some serious feelings for Tony. And not the kind that involved wanting to strangle him. At least, not only those. Steve could remember feeling similar feelings for Peggy. But those butterflies in his stomach had started as soon as she punched Hodge in the face. With Tony well… his first impulse had been to deck him. That feeling had mostly gone away (it surged up every once in a while when Tony did something particularly stupid but Pepper reassured him that was normal) only to be replaced by… something else.

 

They’d gone from teammates to friends, just like Steve had with the Howling Commandos. And that friendship deepened as they spent more time with each other. But after that smile yesterday… yeah those confusing feelings were definitely different from how he felt about the other Avengers, even how he felt about Bucky. This was ridiculous vertigo anytime Tony glanced at him during last night’s movies, a blush on his cheeks as he double checked all his sketchbooks to see how often he’d drawn Tony. The stupid little smile he caught on his face every time he so much as thought about Tony and the ways he pretended not to care. That weird little thing his heart did anytime Tony flirted with him until he remembered that’s how Tony was with everyone.

 

 

And that was the biggest problem. Steve had no idea how to go about starting any sort of relationship. In the past, even with Bucky’s help, he’d been pathetically bad at it. Even after the serum, with girls popping up everywhere just to say hi, Steve had a hard time not sounding like an absolute idiot. And then dating became the farthest thing from his mind after waking up from the ice, after forming the Avengers, after everything… So now…

 

Now, Steve caught himself wondering if Tony’s lips would taste like coffee and he nearly tripped.

 

He managed, somehow, to make it back to the Tower without thinking too much about touching and kissing Tony. He made sure to take a quick, cold shower before heading up for breakfast.

 

Steve was met with typical Saturday morning chaos. Clint and Thor were rough housing with the puppies in the living room. Darcy perched on the couch, feet drawn up out of the danger zone as she filmed them with her phone. Bruce and Sam chatted amiably in the kitchen as they cooked up omelets and French toast. Jane seemed to be very attached to the coffee maker, clutching it tight as she slumped over the counter. Bucky and Nat sat close together in a corner, murmuring to each other and snickering the way they always did when they were making fun of everyone. It was good to see them acting a bit more normally.

 

The only people missing were Phil, Pepper, and of course…

 

“Is Tony still in the workshop?” Steve asked, rooting through the fridge for some orange juice.

 

Sam waggled his eyebrows at him. “No clue, gonna go look for him?”

 

Steve frowned. Was that supposed to be some sort of innuendo? Sam might be right about Steve’s crush on Tony but he didn’t deserve to know about it if he was just going to tease Steve.

 

“I think Rhodey went to kick him out of bed,” Bruce offered.

 

“Rhodey’s here?” Steve asked.

 

“Yes, there are more hot people in this Tower and I am never leaving,” Darcy announced as she walked into the kitchen. She leaned over the counter top to pat Jane on the head. “How you doing, Janey?”

 

There was a muffled groan from the shadows of her hair.

 

“That’s good,” Darcy said as if she understood. “Have you had any coffee yet?”

 

“She tried to bit me when I got too close to the coffee maker,” Sam warned as Jane groaned out another response.

 

“Amateur,” Darcy scoffed with a roll of her eyes. “Janey, sweetie, let go of the coffee maker for me so- oh look, Thor just called up the gay pride bridge for you.”

 

Jane immediately perked up and looked over her shoulder, allowing Darcy to pluck the machine from her clutches. Jane whined and made grabby hands as Darcy carried it away.

 

“That was impressive,” Bruce commented.

 

“One of my many talents,” Darcy said. She put the coffee machine down next to the one on the other counter. It was nearly done brewing. “I speak fluent not-a-morning-person-scientist. If you weren’t such an oddity over there, Fluffles, with your freaky morning awareness, I’d use my charms on you.”

 

 _Fluffles?_ Bruce mouthed at Steve who shrugged.

 

Darcy made to reach up for a coffee mug from the cabinet, paused, and then turned to Steve. “Can you grab me a mug, please?”

 

Steve looked down at her and then to the shelf of mugs that were well within her reach.

 

“I need one from the top,” she explained, gesturing upwards. “Jane has this thing about cups from the top shelf.”

 

Over at the stove, Sam could barely contain a fit of giggles.

 

Steve sighed and reached all the way up, barely doing more than lifting his arm. Which lifted his shirt from his stomach, revealing the muscles beneath. Darcy grinned victoriously and Steve suddenly understood Sam’s laughter.

 

“Here,” Steve mumbled, quickly handing the mug over and pulling his shirt back into place, his ears burning pink.

 

“Can we make a rule that certain people should not wear shirts in the Tower?” Darcy asked.

 

“I like her,” Natasha announced from her corner. She tugged gently at Bucky’s shirt and he shot her a disapproving look.

 

“I regret introducing you two,” Clint chimed in. He was followed into the kitchen by the herd of puppies and a wild-haired Thor. The taller man went right up to Jane and tried to kiss her neck through her hair. She squirmed away from him.

 

“You remember how it works, big guy,” Darcy chided when Thor pouted. “She has no idea who any of us are until at least the second cup of coffee.”

 

When Darcy placed the mug down in front of her, Jane let out a happy noise and quickly started drinking.

 

“Good morning, Avengers and guests!” Tony called dramatically as he practically waltzed into the kitchen. Behind him, Rhodey rolled his eyes so hard it had to hurt. “For those of you who have not had the privilege, this is the fabulous Rhodey. Honey Bear, these are the plebeians. The ones with breasts bite.”

 

“Especially if you’re into that,” Darcy said with a wink.

 

.:.

 

“So I’m finally gonna meet the kid you and Bucky are obsessed with,” Sam said as Steve drove them both to the orphanage. “I’m honored, really, _finally_ getting to go with you to meet your new favorite person.”

 

“You can keep pretending you feel left out,” Steve said. “But we both know you’re only coming with me because you’re afraid of Darcy.”

 

“I have been to war, man,” Sam protested.

 

“So have I,” Steve countered.

 

Sam glanced at him out of the corner of his eye. “We are never telling Barton he was right.”

 

“Agreed,” Steve said seriously.

 

They had some difficulty finding a parking space, the lot full with weekend volunteers. Most of the kids were running around in the fenced in playground, carefully monitored by a few young staff members. Steve scanned the crowd for a familiar flash of blond.

 

“You gonna point Teddy out to me?” Sam asked, hands stuffed in his jacket pockets.

 

“I don’t see him,” Steve replied. “He must be inside.”

 

There weren’t any children inside, just adults cleaning up after lunch. Steve tried not to frown in concern.

 

“Captain Rogers!” Ms. Gomez called from the front desk. Steve waved as she smiled at him and walked over. “We haven’t seen you in a few days, we were starting to get worried.”

 

“Sorry, ma’am,” Steve said sheepishly. “Busy being and Avenger and all. This is Sam Wilson, by the way, our newest member.”

 

“Nice to meet you, ma’am,” Sam said, offering his hand.

 

Ms. Gomez took it in her own. “Nice to meet you too, Sam. Let’s see about getting you a visitors pass while we’ve got you here.”

 

“Do you know where Teddy’s gotten to?” Steve asked once Ms. Gomez handed Sam a form to fill out. “I didn’t see him outside.”

 

“Teddy, dear?” Ms. Gomez clarified. “Oh, there’s been some good news! He was placed in a home this morning. It’ll be much better for him, he’s going to get the one on one attention a child like him needs.”

 

Steve’s stomach plummeted with disappointment and he didn’t quite hear the rest of what she had to say. He put on a smile when the kids came back in from outside, all sweaty and red cheeked but happy to see him. They were all especially excited to meet Sam, the new Avenger they’d all seen on the news.

 

Sam kept giving him pitying looks over the kids’ heads and Sam kept ignoring him.

 

.:.

 

“He didn’t even mention going to a new home,” Steve said forlornly.

 

“You have been gone for a few days,” Sam pacified, walking just as slowly as Steve out of the parking garage. “They probably made the arrangements then.”

 

“It’s not like picking up a puppy at a shelter, Sam,” Steve expounded. “There’s a whole process, it takes time and paperwork and home visits. Teddy would have known about it, he would have said something. All of those kids want to go to actual homes, it’s all they talk about.”

 

“You’ve done research into this.” Sam stopped as the realization struck him. “You wanted to adopt him.”

 

Steve shrugged.

 

“Stark’s movie choices suddenly make a lot more sense,” Sam said.

 

Steve kept on walking towards the elevator. “I know I should be happy for Teddy. And I am, it’s just… his last foster family put him back in the system when they found out he was a mutant. I’m worried it might happen again.”

 

“Xavier’s wasn’t an option?” Sam asked.

 

“Not all that different from the group home,” Steve said. They stepped onto the elevator together, sam pushing the button for the common floor. “He wouldn’t have to worry about hiding himself here and we could give him personal attention. It sucks being alone after your mom dies.”

 

Sam made a sound of agreement and they road up in silence.

 

“Well, hopefully this new home will work out for the kid,” Sam said when the elevator stopped. “There’ll be other kids at the home for you to get attached to.”

 

Steve huffed a laugh. The doors opened and they were met with the sound of… a kid laughing? Steve frowned and looked at Sam who shrugged, just as confused. They went to investigate the living room.

 

Sitting in the middle of the living room, laughing as all five puppies tried to climb into his lap, was Teddy. Steve stared at him, dumbfounded.

 

“Hey there, Cap, Feathers,” Clint greeted from where he sat upside down on the couch.

 

Teddy whipped his head around and smiled brilliantly. “Captain Rogers! Guess what happened!”

 

Before Steve could think to say anything, Tony walked out of the kitchen, arguing with Phil.

 

“-my tower, things like this shouldn’t _be_ an issue,” Tony ranted. Phil just raised an eyebrow at him, unimpressed by whatever point he was trying to prove.

 

“Cap.” Teddy was suddenly right next to Steve, pulling on his pants leg. “Mr. Stark says I can stay here!”

 

Tony stopped gesturing at Phil to point at Teddy. “Ok, first rule, never, ever call me Mr. Stark again, that was my dad.”

 

Teddy giggled and Steve stared.

 

He would never be able to explain what exactly made him move forward into Tony’s personal space. Maybe it was the relief knowing Teddy wasn’t in a random home where he might be returned for being different. Or the feeling of gratitude, that Tony was able to make all this happen (despite the likely illegality of it all). Possibly, it was the confusing emotions that had been bubbling up for a while now. Whatever it was that drove him, the next thing Steve knew, he was grabbing Tony’s face and kissing him.

 

Tony stiffened, his lips completely non-responsive, and Steve started to pull back, panicked alarms going off in the back of his head. Tony reacted faster, one arm wrapping around Steve’s face while the other reached up to grab hold of his hair. Their lips moved together and Steve could only remember one other kiss like this. Not the one with Peggy, with gunshots, explosions, and adrenaline, though it felt just as intense, just as world ending. No, this one was very different, because Tony kissed like a certain blonde secretary, moving lips and tongue hidden behind a bookshelf, just asking to get caught.

 

Steve was only vaguely aware of the other people around them, as he slowly pulled away, his eyes half lidded. Teddy was making noises, like he was grossed out by adults kissing. Sam might have been making the same noise with him.

 

“God dammit,” Clint swore loudly. “Bruce won the damn pot.”

 

“You’re not ‘sposed to swear,” Teddy chastised.

 

“What was that for?” Tony asked, sounding half drunk.

 

Steve smiled down at him. “You’re an amazing person. Thank you for doing this.”

 

“Doing what?” Tony asked.

 

“Getting Teddy here,” Steve told him.

 

“Like Agent gave me a choice,” Tony grumbled.

 

Steve frowned. “What?”

 

“Agent’s the one who brought the kid in,” Tony explained. “So if you’re laying kisses on people as a new way of saying thanks, pretty sure he’s willing.”

 

“Please don’t,” Clint called. “I will not be able to stand up to that kind of competition.”

 

Steve dropped his hands away from Tony and looked to Phil in confusion.

 

“According to Xavier, he’s not a mutant,” Coulson explained calmly. “SHIELD would like to keep a close eye on him so for now, Teddy is in my custody.”

 

Steve took a step back as his head finally caught up with his actions. He stared at Tony with wide eyes and suddenly wished he was frozen in the ice, just so he could escape from the entire misunderstanding. Because now Tony knew and he wasn’t reacting to it at all.

 

Without another word, Steve turned around and ran back to his apartment to hide for the rest of eternity.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt:  
> And then one day, while Steve's moping in his closet with the puppies, he hears laughter from the living room.  
> And Teddy is sitting in there, petting Lucky and Steve looks at Tony because Tony has been especially quiet on the subject of Steve trying to adopt Teddy but Tony just shrugs (because the red tape had all but dissapeared with a wave of his hand except for the mutant/super power issue).  
> And while legally Teddy is Coulson's ward (because SHIELD likes to monitor potential threats/assests and they can't just leave a shape shifting child in an orphanage) he's pretty much raised by the entire Avengers.


	13. Operation: Give it a Catchier Name

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rhodey and Sam are fed up with Steve and Tony pining and plot. It goes exactly as well as you think it will...

Rhodey looked down at his phone as it began to buzz. It bumped against his feet where he had them propped up on the coffee table in Tony’s penthouse lounge. He put down his newspaper crossword to check the caller ID. It wasn’t a number he recognized. So not Tony or Pepper about Tony.

 

“Hello?” he responded after flicking the accept call button.

 

“How much trouble will I get into for killing a national icon?”

 

“Sam?” Rhodey asked.

 

“Who else would be asking permission to kill Captain America?” Sam retorted. “This is a serious question, here.”

 

“Why exactly do you want to kill Steve?” Rhodey asked, sitting back and getting more comfortable on the couch. He’d never admit it but Tony always managed to find the nicest damn couches Rhodey ever had the pleasure to sit on. He always gave the credit to Pepper, though, because she always did all the decorating and ordering but she, unfortunately, had a tendency to choose form over function when it came to a matching set of furniture.

 

“He’s driving me absolutely insane,” Sam whined, bringing his thoughts away from comfy couches.

 

“Unfortunately, that’s not a liable defense otherwise Tony would have been smothered in his sleep years ago,” Rhodey told him, a faint smile on his lips.

 

“At this point it would be a mercy killing,” Sam insisted, almost begging. “Have you seen the bastard lately?”

 

“I haven’t, actually,” Rhodey said, his brow furrowing with the sudden realization.

 

“Quit hanging out with Tony for an hour, you’ll see it,” Sam said. “Steve refuses to be in the same room as Tony, he nearly ran over Jane trying to get out of the kitchen when Tony showed up randomly. And I swear, he considered jumping out of a window during the last movie night.”

 

“Tony didn’t go to that,” Rhodey reminded him.

 

“I’m aware but the over muscled dope kept waiting for him to show up.” Sam let out a noise that might have been a groan within a sigh. “He’s been making himself miserable ever since that awkward kiss last week.”

 

“Please don’t remind me,” Rhodey said, making the same noise. “Tony hasn’t shut up about it, apparently it’s just another one of Steve’s mixed signals because God forbid someone he likes would ever like him back.”

 

“We should get damn medals for putting up with this shit,” Sam said. “Right after I kill Steve.”

 

Rhodey chuckled. “How about we get ourselves some beer and crappy bar food while we figure out how to get these two out of their misery.”

 

“Damn, that sounds like a beautiful idea,” Sam agreed. “Because if Steve complains for one more minute about how Tony will never be his friend again, I’m gonna kill him, jail time be damned.”

 

Rhodey smiled as they made plans to meet up. He continued to smile as Sam went on and on about Steve as they drank beer at the nearest sports bar. He waxed eloquent about how annoying it was having to put up with a guy who couldn’t get his head out of his ass long enough to see that Tony Stark _obviously_ likes him back, come on man, a blind idiot could see it, even Thor knew it was a thing and he was still a little lost when it came to “Midgardian courtship rituals,” he actually said it that way, like they were a bunch of freaking zoo animals he was studying. Rhodey slid the fourth beer away from Sam at that point but kept smiling anyway. He just couldn’t help it because it was absolutely adorable. Sam thought he was dealing with an idiot of a friend who wouldn’t know happiness if it bit him in the ass.

 

Rhodey had a plaque that stated he’d officially won that Olympic category for the last 10 years (he technically had 9 others, all made with actual gold and shiny expensive wood because Tony kept buying them and sending to him for Christmas along with the very long list of screw ups he would most likely be making before New Year’s). Rhodey had been friends with one Tony Stark since their freshman year at MIT wherein Tony had been fifteen and drunk enough to jump off their fourth story balcony before midnight the first night of orientation. Tony Stark, whose drunken and sexual exploits could fill an entire bookshelf, who always looked to Rhodey to help chip dried vomit off the ceiling or pull wadded up thongs out of the toilet, who nearly got Rhodey court-martialed by association alone. So yeah, Rhodey had been dealing with Tony’s gigantic pile of shit a lot longer than Sam had been putting up with Steve’s minor bumps in the road.

 

Rhodey couldn’t help but smile because it was nice to see someone else driven to insanity by an emotionally constipated friend, knowing he was still the reigning champion.

 

“We need to come up with a plan,” Sam said, his words a bit slurred as he reached for the bottle of beer Rhodey had moved to the far corner of their table.

 

“Are we talking something along the lines of the Parent Trap?” Rhodey joked.

 

“If switching places on them helps, I will do it, but let’s think of something easier first,” Sam said. “Let’s just try getting them in the same room together.”

 

“Well, I’m pretty sure Tony’s welded his ass to the floor of his hermit cave so he has an excuse not to leave,” Rhodey explained.

 

“Steve’s not gonna go anywhere near there anyway, not unless Tony’s dying or something,” Sam waved his hand.

 

Rhodey raised an eyebrow, opening his mouth to make a suggestion.

 

“We need some place neutral,” Sam continued before he could.

 

Rhodey nodded. “There’s not a lot of options in the Tower and I know Tony isn’t going to go outside for anything less than a global emergency.”

 

“You ever think how easy it would be to split the Avengers in half based on their relationships with Steve and Tony?” Sam asked suddenly.

 

“Thought we were trying to get them together, not plot a superhero civil war,” Rhodey commented.

 

Sam raised his hands defensively. “Just saying, if they ever got to the point of divorce, that’s totally what would happen.”

 

“Well, let’s get them to talk to each other again before we start planning the fall out for their inevitable break up,” Rhodey suggested. “Should we try to fake an emergency?”

 

“Oh, I like that, that could work,” Sam said, pointing a finger in his face. “What kind of emergency is gonna get Tony off his ass?”

 

“Something involving Pepper but she’s officially sworn off any and all involvement in the whole Steve and Tony love debacle,” Rhodey said.

 

“Hard to set up an ex with someone else.” Sam nodded.

 

“More she knows the resulting headache would drive her to finally smothering Tony in his sleep,” Rhodey stated.

 

“How come Pepper’s allowed to kill people?” Sam asked, almost whining.

 

“Because A, no jury in any universe would ever convict her, I’m pretty sure Fury himself would give her the key to the planet or something,” Rhodey said. “And B, she’s smart enough and powerful enough, with all of the right people backing her, to get away with it.”

 

“Fair enough,” Sam conceded. “So what can we do to get them…”

 

He fell silent without finishing his sentence, staring into his bottle of beer.

 

“I got it!” Sam exclaimed, spilling some of his beer in his eagerness. He snapped his fingers right under Rhodey’s nose. “The sprinklers!”

 

Rhodey’s brow bunched in confusion. “What-“

 

“No, hear me out,” Sam insisted, patting Rhodey’s upper arm. The guy seemed to lose all notion of personal space the more he drank. “We get Jarvis to set off the fire sprinklers. He likes you right, you can get him to do it.”

 

“Sure,” Rhodey allowed, wondering where this stream of thought could possibly go.

 

“So we get him to do that in every room Steve and Tony are in until we eventually herd them into a room together,” Sam finished. “And if they try to leave that room, the sprinklers come back on.”

 

Of all the plans Rhodey had ever heard in his life, this was not the best. However, he’d been pulled into enough Stark inspired lunacy to know it didn’t even come close to the worst. And given the circumstances, it might actually work out in their favor unlike over 99% of Tony’s. He grinned at his new partner in crime and held out a hand.

 

“Operation: Get Those Idiots Together commences at 0900,” Rhodey said.

 

Sam pouted slightly before shaking his hand. “Agreed. But we are coming up with something much catchier than that later.”

 

.:.

 

Operation: Get Those Idiots Together never did get renamed. Nor did it work nearly as well as Sam thought it would. From his vantage point observing multiple security cameras on totally awesome holographic displays, sitting cross-legged in his super secret base of operations (the utility closet on Steve’s floor of the Tower that held a single mop because he was pretty sure everyone had forgotten it was even there) it had gone extremely not well.

 

The very wet Natasha standing over him in the doorway was the perfect example of just how very not good the whole thing had gone.

 

“Should I ask?” Natasha inquired, resigned.

 

Sam but his lip, trying to keep his eyes very firmly on her flinty eyes and not the way her drenched shirt clung to her chest because he liked his body parts attached the way they already were. “I wouldn’t, no.”

 

She continued to glare at him.

 

“How do you know it’s my fault?” Sam asked, trying to hide the glowing screens displaying wet rooms with his body.

 

Natasha raised an eyebrow in a way the made Sam almost wet himself.

 

“Rhodey’s helping, he got Jarvis on our side, don’t kill just me please,” Sam blurted.

 

“Why?” Natasha asked simply, folding her arms across her chest.

 

“It’s a plan to get Tony and Steve together so they’ll stop whining to us about their problems and bang each other already,” Sam let out in a rush. The eyebrow lowered and Sam let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding, the urge to squirm leaving him still and blinking remorsefully at her. He felt like he’d just been interrogated by the Spanish inquisition or something. Turns out, years of SHIELD torture resistance training still had nothing on half a minute with Natasha Romanoff.

 

Which was really unsettling because Sam had seen her in fluffy pink teddy bear pajamas, how the hell did she manage to still terrify him without even moving?

 

“Because men are spineless puppies,” Natasha said and oh god, she could read minds now, that just made things so much worse. “Exactly how many attempts have you made with this little plan of yours.”

 

“This would be the first,” Sam replied. “And no, we did not take into account the collateral damage that would occur in the effort to flood them out of their rooms and into each others’ arms.”

 

“Poetic,” Natasha commented.

 

“Thank you.”

 

“I’m wet,” she pointed out.

 

“I had noticed.” Sam nodded.

 

“Were you aware that Steve was in my kitchen, talking to James, when you started this cute little plan of yours?”

 

Sam winced. “No.”

 

Natasha nodded slowly. “Next time pull up your monitoring screens before you give the ok on the plan. And call me when this falls apart on you two, I’ll give you some help.”

 

She turned on her heel and left without another word.

 

“Should I hide before she comes after me?” Rhodey asked through the comm device in Sam’s ear.

 

“You’re stationed directly outside of Tony’s lab, I would grab the armor and bail,” Sam agreed.

 

.:.

 

“Tony never even left the workshop,” Rhodey complained later at the bar. “He just had Dummy hold an umbrella over him.”

 

Sam shrugged. “Steve might have been having some sort of important heart to heart with Bucky in Nat’s kitchen.”

 

“So this plan tanked,” Rhodey said, taking a large gulp of his fancy microbrew.

 

“I think we forgot the _idiot_ part of getting these two idiots together,” Sam agreed. He was drinking cheap, mass produced beer without any pretentious labeling. It was still miles above the absolute shit Clint kept buying. Sam found Rhodey’s little habit of drinking low-calorie pale ale with a twist of citrus and a secret blend of spices (seriously, that’s what the label said and Sam had no idea how to even pronounce the stupid name with a few too many consonants and not nearly enough vowels) kind of weirdly endearing.

 

Rhodey looked at him quizzically and Sam blinked away his distraction. “We need to try a more hands on approach.”

 

“Well, short of bashing their heads together, got any ideas?”

 

Sam groaned and dropped his own head to the table. “Nope.”

 

“Me neither,” Rhodey grumbled.

 

Planning was hard when they were both buzzed. Which in retrospect explained why they thought flooding the Tower was a good idea.

 

“Steve thinks the sprinklers were his fault,” Sam said into the light brown tabletop. It smelled kinda of funny, like the disinfectant used on it had gone a bit sour. “He’s convince Tony’s upset about the kiss and that was his way of getting back at Steve.”

 

Rhodey let out an unhappy moan. “That was the exact opposite of what we wanted to do.

 

Sam nodded, his forehead rubbing against the table. They sat there in miserable silence while the excited cheering of sports fans went on around them (if one could consider golf a sport, and seriously who went to a bar to cheer for _golf_?).

 

_Children_ , Sam thought unkindly as the sound of glass shattering preceded the noise of a rather impressive stream of cursing.

 

Sam popped up suddenly, surprising Rhodey enough to make him spill some of his beer. “The kid!”

 

“What?” Rhodey asked, clearly not following what was a beautiful stroke of genius on Sam’s part. No really, this was just the perfect idea.

 

“The kid got all this shit between them started, he could totally be what gets them to open their damn eyes,” Sam said. It made perfect sense, like that quote from Harry Potter about opening and closing and endings.

 

“Are you talking about Teddy?” Rhodey asked, still so slow on the uptake.

 

“Is there another kid living with all of us?” Sam asked sarcastically. “Yes, Teddy, come on, keep up with the brilliance here. He’s exactly what we need.”

 

Sam smiled manically and Rhodey slowly blinked at him.

 

“I don’t think this is going to end well.”

 

.:.

 

“Barton, I need to borrow Coulson’s kid,” Sam said, bouncing on the balls of his feet.

 

Clint stared at him from the front door of his apartment without saying anything.

 

Sam shifted awkwardly. “You heard me, right?”

 

“Oh yeah, I heard you,” Clint reassured him. “I was hoping you wouldn’t make me ask why.”

 

“Reasons,” Sam said simply and Rhodey pinched the bridge of his nose. Yeah, this whole idea had the same crazy desperation vibe Tony’s plans always started out with.

 

“We’re hoping Teddy might help us with the whole Steve and Tony being morons thing,” Rhodey explained when Clint turned an incredulous look on him. Clint obviously knew which one of them was handling listening to their pining best friend better. Sam was starting to lose his mind if the constant twitching his left eye was doing was any indicator.

 

“How?” Clint asked, his eyebrows rising towards his hairline.

 

“We’re working on that,” Sam waved him off and Rhodey wished that wasn’t as true as it was. “Now can we borrow him? You can tell Coulson we’re babysitting.”

 

Clint sighed. “You can come ask Teddy if he wants to help. But if whatever it is you wind up doing in anyway affects my private grown up time with Phil, I am personally pushing you both out of a window.”

 

“Ew,” Sam said, following as Clint led them further into the apartment.

 

Teddy was sitting on the floor in the living room, leaning back against Lucky lying behind him. He was wearing Captain America footie pajamas and had a bowl full of what looked like Fruit loops and marshmallows in his lap. His eyes were riveted to the cartoons on the TV.

 

“Hey, Ted-bug,” Clint greeted. Teddy looked up at the curiously, a shy smile on his face as he waved to Rhodey and Sam. “You busy?”

 

The little boy glanced back at the television. “It’s just a rerun. They played this episode yesterday.”

 

“Whatchya watchin’?” Clint asked, leaning over the back of the couch. “Aw, Batman, sweet.”

 

He vaulted over the couch and crossed his legs under him, settling in to enjoy the show.

 

“How many kids is Phil looking after again?” Sam asked dryly. Clint stuck his tongue out at them.

 

“Pops said I’m in charge while he’s at work,” Teddy said proudly.

 

“Hey, don’t tell them that,” Clint said, flailing. Teddy giggled and moved his bowl out of the way as Clint tried to snag a marshmallow.

 

“So, kiddo,” Rhodey said, hoping to get this disaster of a yet to be made up plan over and done with already. “Do you mind giving Sam and I a hand?”

 

Teddy cocked his head to the side. “With what?”

 

.:.

 

“New rule,” Clint announced to the entire team, assembled and waiting in the living room. “My kid is off limits any of your schemes, plots, or shenanigans. It is a SHIELD recognized rule, I filed the paperwork for it and everything and we all know how much the paper pushers hate when I do that.”

 

Sam and Rhodey shifted guiltily on the couch, avoiding eye contact with everyone. Teddy was hiding behind Clint’s leg, his face red from crying and Sam felt like the biggest douche on the planet. They really shouldn’t have pushed so hard when Teddy said he didn’t want to make Steve and Tony tell their secrets. In their defense, they hadn’t known how seriously the kid took keeping secrets but Sam probably should have thought of that, what with the kid’s whole shape shifting thing. Maybe simplifying the situation as secret keeping was the wrong way to go about it since it really wasn’t a secret to _anyone_ except for the two morons sitting as far apart from each other as the room would allow.

 

They weren’t even looking in the general direction of each other, Steve with his whole body twisted to the side and his hand very unsubtly propping his head up to block his view, Tony with his knees drawn up and some tinker toy in his lap, screwdriver clamped between his teeth. Sam’s desire to smack them both upside the head was only beat by his extreme guilt for making Teddy cry. Next to him, Rhodey kept elbowing him, like it was all Sam’s fault. Which may or may not be true but it was still rude.

 

“Now, me and the Ted-bug are going to get icecream, if any of you losers want to join us,” Clint said before turning a glare on Sam and Rhodey. “Not you assholes.”

 

“Swear jar,” Teddy mumbled, glancing up at him.

 

“Worth it,” Clint told him, handing over a dollar before picking him up. He shot them another scathing look before leaving for the elevator.

 

Everyone in the room glanced at them before dispersing. Steve and Thor followed after Clint while Tony practically teleported out of the room with how fast he disappeared back to his workshop. Bruce and Jane went back to their conversation on some scientific journal, picking up right where they left off before Clint demanded a team assembly in the middle of their discussion. Darcy grabbed onto Bucky’s arm and turned to Natasha.

 

“I’m not done borrowing him,” Darcy said and Sam did not want to know why Bucky’s face looked that resigned. That was the face of a man who needed a very stiff drink and it wasn’t even one o’clock. Natasha nodded and patted Bucky’s cheek as he was dragged away. Once they were out of the room, she turned on Sam and Rhodey.

 

“Are you sure you two don’t need any help?” she prompted.

 

Sam shook his head vigorously. “Nope, no, we’re good, we can totally do this ourselves.”

 

Natasha’s matchmaking skills were legendary but she had yet to make a successful partnership last (this due mainly to Clint’s interference and/or direct involvement in said partnership) and Sam wanted this shit to work out long enough for him to keel over from old age because he was not going to listen to Steve whine with his stupid puppy dog eyes about how much he’d ruined his friendship with Stark. No, it was not going to happen, a break up would be so much worse than all of this, no. Pease, god, no.

 

“We made a six-year-old cry,” Rhodey reminded him.

 

Sam turned to look at where Natasha was sitting, the corner of her mouth turned up slightly. It was the equivalent of a Cheshire smile on anyone else cause she knew she’d won. “We totally cannot do this on our own. Please, please help us.”

 

The other corner of her mouth turned up in a full grin and they both shuddered.

 

.:.

 

Operation: Cupid’s Arrow started with Sam and Rhodey apologizing to Teddy by purchasing the largest dinosaur Lego set they could find. It was large enough to fill an entire room all spread out, the box bigger than the kid himself and he forgave them with wide eyes and a huge smile. They spent the next 24 hours helping him build it with Clint who only forgave them once the kid passed out an hour before his usual bedtime. Once he was on their side again, he was perfectly willing to go along with the plan… whatever that was, Natasha had yet to actually clue them in or even give them a timeline.

 

Which meant another week of suffering through lovesick pining. Rhodey had thought he’d seen the worst Tony could get in that area after Pepper broke up with him. He really didn’t ever need to know that it could get worse. Tony was just pathetic, and if Rhodey had to sit through another night of Kahlua and rocky road, he might just do something as drastic as Sam seemed to be willing to do.

 

Like showing up at Tony’s front door and demanding they go on a date.

 

“Wait, what?” Rhodey asked once his synapsis started firing again.

 

“I need you to get me out of this Tower before do something really dumb like try to get Pepper involved,” Sam said. “And for future reference, punching Steve in frustration only gets you a sprained wrist and some really pathetic puppy eyes.”

 

Sam showed off the wrist wrapped in a brace and Rhodey laughed. “I’m pretty sure anyone could have told you that.”

 

“Shut up and go steal on of Stark’s credit cards, the shiny, heavy black one,” Sam insisted. “I need to show Steve that happiness is not that difficult, dates are not complicated, it will not ruin a friendship if it doesn’t work out and I want to spend Stark’s money so let’s go.”

 

“Trust me when I say neither of us could ever spend enough money in a single night for Tony Stark to even notice,” Rhodey advised, moving into the apartment to do it anyway. “He excels at wasting money.”

 

And that’s how Rhodey found himself being seated at a fancy French restaurant while the maitre d’ judged them silently for showing up in less than fancy dress. Rhodey had barely thrown on slacks and a blazer before Sam was dragging him out of the Tower, only dressed in a dark red button up and pressed khakis. Sam seemed aware of the disapproval and really didn’t seem to care, smiling brightly as the waitress brought them menus.

 

“This is the moment where I remember I only know one phrase in French,” Sam said as he glanced through the foreign dish names.

 

“Voulez vous coucher avec moi?” Rhodey asked with a grin.

 

“Finish buying me dinner first,” Sam joked.

 

They were able to order with the help of the waitress who Sam was flirting up a storm with and it did weird things to Rhodey’s stomach to think of that kind of winning charm turned on him. But this was a fake date to prove a point not the first step towards… anything, except a funny story to tell, probably.

 

Rhodey took a rather large swallow of his red wine anyway and wished for something stronger. He was so blaming Tony for all of this, however it ended.

 

Sam was still grinning at him when they both got a text message. Sam got his phone out first, checking the message before throwing his head back and laughing. It was loud and infectious, drawing everyone’s attention and pulling a smile from Rhodey’s lips. He turned the phone around and Rhodey read the text from Natasha.

 

_Chck news ASAP after ur date ;)_

 

“Does she think this is a real date?” Rhodey asked.

 

Sam shook his head. “Nat likes playing at matchmaking. Remind me to tell you about Clint’s failed marriage with Bobbi Morse.”

 

“Clint was married?” Rhodey asked incredulously.

 

“I know, right?” Sam nodded. “I’m still convinced Bobbi suffered severe head trauma after a mission to Cabo.”

 

He wound up telling the whole ridiculous tale while they ate, nearly making Rhodey choke laughing around a mouthful of duck. It was nice, laughing with Sam. He was an easy man to get along with, in ways Rhodey never could with Tony simply because Tony demanded altogether too much attention and not enough. Sam was uncomplicated, from what Rhodey could gather, and that was a nice change.

 

Sam was too eager to check the news to wait through dessert so they got a large box of éclairs to go and hailed a taxi.

 

“Where’s the best place to check the news?” Sam asked, leaning against the taxi as Rhodey climbed in.

 

“I was thinking the sports bar probably,” Rhodey suggested. “I need cheap, deep fried food after those small portions.”

 

Sam laughed. “I had the same conversation about fancy tiny portions with Steve before. He wasn’t pleased with them either.”

 

“Nat say what news we’re supposed to be looking for?” Rhodey asked as they gave directions to the cab driver.

 

“You’re only gonna find one kind of news tonight,” the driver said, sounding resigned but oddly eager at the same time.

 

“What happened?” Sam asked, the both of them tensing together in the back seat, ready for an Avengers level threat.

 

“You don’t know?” the driver asked, incredulous. “It’s literally been everywhere.”

 

“We’ve been distracted,” Sam said, grinning as he leaned back in his seat, his leg brushing against Rhodey’s.

 

The driver ignored him and turned the radio up.

 

“-where earlier today the Avengers helped contain a dangerous turtle like monster,” the voice of a newswoman announced over the static. “Though there were no signs of the Hulk, the Avengers managed to contain the beast with minimal damage to the surrounding neighborhoods.”

 

“Sons of bitches always forget to call me when shit happens,” Sam complained. “I’m totally an Avenger too.”

 

The driver took his eyes off the road to glance at them in the rearview mirror, his eyebrows rising into his hairline.

 

“Maybe they agreed you needed a break,” Rhodey joked lamely, his body just as stiff as Sam’s. He hated having to hear about Tony’s exploits (sexual, heroic, or otherwise) when he couldn’t do a damn thing to help him out.

 

“But the most shocking thing from tonight’s battle,” the spokeswoman continued, “came in the aftermath, when Iron Man and Captain America were caught kissing on camera.”

 

Rhodey and Sam blinked at each other for a very long moment, the rest of the news report going fully ignored. Then Sam punched the air and Rhodey let out a relieved sigh.   


“Fucking finally.”

 

.:.

 

Tony wasn’t exactly sure what was making him feel like he was weightless and floating. It was most likely the morphine drip stuck in his arm, lying in a bed in SHIELD medical. The romantic sap in him (which he worked very hard to suppress and ignore under daddy issues and bad drinking habits) insisted it had everything to do with the hand holding his own, a rough calloused thumb rubbing back and forth over his knuckles. His hand was lifted and a pair of chapped lips brushed against the back of it and yep, that heart fluttering feeling had nothing to do with drugs.

 

“I’m not dying,” Tony muttered without opening his eyes. He felt Steve jump in surprise, tugging his hand back a bit but not letting go. “My leg is broken, everyone is over reacting, as usual.”

 

“You’re lucky that’s all that happened,” Steve said, using his concerned yet disapproving voice he seemed to reserve for Tony specifically. Which, rude. And normally Tony would instinctively rebel against it in some stupid way, a crass comment or going through with whatever dumb idea he was doing but… well, Tony was pretty sure if he pissed Steve off, he’d stop holding his hand, probably wouldn’t kiss him again either. Tony _really_ liked kissing Steve, even if it had only happened twice now. Tony could very easily see it becoming his new favorite pastime and wasn’t it lucky for everyone else it wasn’t nearly as destructive as all his other hobbies.

 

“Aw, you’re worried about me,” Tony teased smugly. He peeked over to see Steve rolling his eyes.

 

“You crashed into a building, Tony,” Steve reminded him.

 

“It’s still standing,” Tony said, waving his free hand lazily and ignoring how sore his whole arm felt.

 

“That’s not really the point,” Steve insisted. “You’re repulsors stopped working and you crashed from four stories up.”

 

“Yeah, that whole repulsor thing, I’m no sure how that happened,” Tony admitted with a frown. He absentmindedly tapped his fingers against Steve’s wrist. They’d been functioning perfectly fine during the fight with the giant turtle (and seriously, what the hell had he done in a previous life to wind up with shit like that happening to him?) and then, once everything had calmed down and the stupid thing ambled back to the ocean, something had struck Tony’s leg and next thing he knew, he was careening headfirst into some bank building. He was probably going to have to pay for that façade work to be replaced, even if the whole naked angel babies and robed women statues was decades out of style.

 

Before Tony could make a snide comment about dumb and inconvenient architecture breaking his falls, the door to the room opened and Natasha entered with a worried looking Pepper close on her heels. Tony felt Steve drawing away, sitting up in his chair and slipping his hand out of Tony’s. Well, that wouldn’t do. Tony clamped down on Steve’s fingers ‘cause there was no way in hell he was going to let the big lummox run away again. He sent a pout in Steve’s direction for good measure.

 

“Are you ok?” Pepper asked, her hands fluttering over Tony’s injured leg uselessly. She tended to do that, like maybe touching his numerous booboos would help him as well as ground her.

 

“I’m perfectly fine,” Tony assured her. “You should see the other guy.”

 

“The other guy is a wall and it won,” Natasha commented dryly. She pulled up a chair and propped her feet on the edge of the bed.

 

“No one asked you,” Tony told her off, trying to push her feet away with his leg. “Pep, I promise, I am A-Okay. Rhodey’s not even here so I’m obviously not dying.”

 

Tony took a moment to mull over what he’d just said, a frown creasing his forehead. “Why is Rhodey not hovering like I’m dying?”

 

“He’s on a date with Sam,” Natasha answered, not looking up from her phone.

 

“When did they start dating?” Steve asked, brows knit in confusion.

 

“They’ll hopefully realize tomorrow morning after the epic hangover they’re going to have,” Natasha said. “Sam’s insisting it’s to prove a point and I think Rhodes is just going with it. If they don’t wind up in bed together after their victory drinking, they’re obviously bigger idiots than you two.”

 

“They are not allowed to do that,” Tony protested. Every eye fell on him. “I refuse to share this day with anyone else, this officially _my_ day, no one else can have it, I will make it a god damn national holiday if I have to.”

 

He crossed his arms over his chest, pulling Steve’s hand along and making him lean up in Tony’s space.

 

“Your day?” Steve asked with a raised eyebrow. His cheeks were an adorable shade of pink and his lips were twitching with a smile.

 

“Our day,” Tony allowed. “Still not sharing the spotlight.”

 

“Speaking of spotlights,” Pepper interrupted. The concern was completely gone from her face and replaced by her _Tony’s fucked up and now I’m stuck cleaning it up_ face, with the whole pinched eyes and yep, there was that throbbing vein in her forehead. She threw a Stark tablet down into Tony’s lap.

 

“That is a delicate prototype, not a Frisbee,” Tony protested.

 

“You two are currently the top trending story everywhere,” Pepper continued, completely ignoring Tony. “I’ve been fielding requests for interviews and statements all night. There’s an army of reporters camped outside the Tower again.”

 

“There’s always an army outside,” Tony reminded as Steve picked up the tablet.

 

“It’s gotten worse and this one you can’t just shoot,” Pepper clarified. “You’re little stunt yesterday is the biggest PR headache we’ve ever had to deal with and yes, I’m including when you came out as Iron Man and the incident in college with the farm animals.”

 

“Look at you, Steve, helping me break personal records already,” Tony teased with a grin.

 

“It’s not a bad picture,” Steve commented, angling the tablet so Tony could see. It was obviously taken from a cellphone, zoomed in enough to look pixelated and then blown up further by some idiot news crew techie but Tony was actually proud of his little R&D crew. The new shaky-cam-prevention tech was really coming along (but definitely needed a catchier name). It was not hard at all to see Steve kneeling over Tony, propping him up out of the dust and rubble to pull him in close for what Tony remembered as a very excellent make-out session. It was just too bad they hadn’t caught the look on Steve’s face four minutes later when Tony admitted to a concussion because that had been downright priceless.

 

“How hard do you think it’ll be to make this the centerpiece of the Smithsonians’ Avengers’ exhibit?” Tony asked.

 

Pepper rolled her eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So damn, this took forever to get to you. I've actually had it written for weeks now, I just haven't gotten around to actually typing it up. But, I've gotta get it done and the next chapter should be up next week (it's also written, just needs to be typed) because with Nanowrimo coming up, I'm not gonna have any time to work on this story. Next week's chapter will be the last one of this story. It's gonna be good ;)
> 
> But don't worry, after November there will be a whole new story featuring the adventures of Teddy in this new crazy family. So look forward to that! I'll include more details in next week's chapter :)


	14. Compromised

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clint and Phil get married. Tony gets tazed. There's an elephant.

Wednesday night found Clint and Phil curled up together on their living room couch, marathoning the last month’s worth of recorded Super Nanny episodes. Teddy was asleep in his room, tucked in a few hours ago after dinner and a bath. They were warm and comfy and ready to enjoy a peaceful night in together. 

At least, until Clint shifted on the couch to look over his shoulder for the fifth time in half an hour and Phil let out a very long sigh. 

“You’re being paranoid,” Phil informed him, pausing the episode they were in the middle of. 

“It’s not paranoia if people are actually plotting things behind my back,” Clint protested, looking over his shoulder again. 

Phil patted his knee. “You’re the only one who’s seeing anything.”

“How do you not see it?” Clint asked. He sat up from leaning into Phil’s side to look at him incredulously. “They’re not even subtle about it. I’ve walked in on Nat and Rogers whispering with Thor. Thor. He was whispering. And they stopped as soon as I entered the room.”

“That doesn’t mean they’re plotting,” Phil pointed out. Clint raised an eyebrow. 

“Pepper and Stark have been extra sneaky with covering up their projects on the servers,” Clint continued. 

“You’re a nosy gossip who spies on people for a living, you can’t blame them for wanting to keep you out of their business,” Phil said. “And stop trying to sneak into secure files, you’ve never been good at it.” 

Clint stuck his tongue out at him. “Darcy keeps evil-smiling at me.”

“She always does that,” Phil reminded him. 

“It’s been more evil lately,” Clint insisted. 

“Paranoid,” Phil told him. 

“Fine,” Clint said in a huff, pouting. He crossed his arms and flopped back against Phil’s side. “When this all comes back to bite us in the ass…”

He went quiet for a moment and stiffened as a sudden revelation came to him. He jolted upright and scooted as far away from Phil as the couch would let him. “Dear god, you’re in on it too!”

Phil actually rolled his eyes but made no comment, turning his attention back to the TV and unpausing the episode. 

“I hate you,” Clint said, squinting at him. 

“I’m devastated,” Phil deadpanned. 

“You should be,” Clint told him matter-of-factly. “Because I’m about to go get some ice cream and I don’t share with people I hate.”

Phil’s lips twitched upwards as Clint stood. “Guess I won’t have to worry about watching my figure then. That’ll be nice once the team kills you and I’m a free man again.”

“Aha!” Clint exclaimed, jabbing a finger under Phil’s nose. “So you admit there’s a plot against me.”

Phil grabbed hold of his wrist and dragged him forward to whisper against his lips, “Use a bowl, not the damn carton.”

“You’re just the best at dirty talk,” Clint joked, landing a peck on Phil’s lips. He made his way into the kitchen with the sound of screaming children behind him. He pulled out two bowls from the dishwasher and made a mental note to try and remember to put the dishes away later. The tub of rocky road was dug out from the back of the freezer and a couple of spoons pulled from the drawer by the sink. He was just about to shovel out as much ice cream as he could pack onto the large scoop when Phil gave a shout from the living room. 

Clint dropped everything and dashed out of the kitchen. He heard the static buzz of a stun gun, someone yelping in pain, and then a solid thump all before making it down the hall. He slid into the living room to find Phil standing in the middle of it, frowning and holding a black sack in his hand. Behind the couch, Thor, Steve, and Rhodey shifted uncomfortably, all looking extremely guilty. Stark lay on the floor, twitching and drooling into the carpet. 

“So I missed something,” Clint said as his heart crawled down from the back of his throat and slowed to a more normal speed. 

“Just the attempted kidnapping of your significantly better half for the purposes of his bachelor party,” Darcy said from behind Clint. He very nearly jumped out of his skin, flailing to get away from her. 

“Bachelor party?” Phil inquired in an unimpressed voice. Clint hid behind him, eyeing Darcy warily. 

“Surprise?” Steve offered lamely. 

“What surprise, what is this?” Clint demanded. 

“It is tradition upon Midgard for two lovers to celebrate the end of their singular lives with grand parties upon the eve of their wedding,” Thor informed them as if he was an expert on the subject. “’Tis a tradition I am most excited to participate in.” 

“Just remember, big guy, you get a lap dance and Jane’ll cut you off for a week,” Darcy warned. She plopped down onto the couch, propping her feet up on the coffee table. 

Phil turned to Steve as he knelt next to Stark, still drooling into the carpet. “Please explain the crazy.” 

“Um, well,” Steve started eloquently, scratching the back of his head. “We’ve all been getting together the past couple of weeks to help Pepper plan your wedding.”

“Ha!” Clint exclaimed smugly. He poked Phil in the shoulder. “I told you they were plotting- wait, what wedding?” 

“It’s supposed to be a surprise,” Rhodey offered. “Pepper planned the whole thing, so it won’t be anything ridiculous like Tony wanted. Is he breathing?”

“He’s good,” Steve replied, his fingers pressed to Tony’s neck to check his pulse. “We were just going to grab Phil for our half of the bachelor party.”

“Why has Pepper planned a surprise wedding for us?” Phil asked, pinching the bridge of his nose the way he did whenever the team was about to drive him absolutely crazy. 

“Because you can’t tell Tony shit,” Darcy chimed in without looking up from the TV guide. “He totally blabbed about Clint’s girly dream wedding with the white dress and everything.”

Phil looked over his shoulder at Clint.

“I never mentioned anything about white or dresses,” Clint said defensively. “Although Stark did get me drunk, so who knows what I actually said.”

“Well, now you’ve got Natasha waiting to destroy your liver, so I’d get moving if I were you,” Darcy said, waving hem off. “Don’t worry about the kid, I’ll keep an eye on him. Go have fun, you’ll be hung over in the morning but hey, everything’s planned so it’s not like you need to be conscious for it.”

Clint felt dread build in the pit of his stomach as he was dragged away to whatever doom Natasha had planned for him. 

.:.

Phil loved him. Phil loved him so much, enough to go with Natasha instead. Nat had started planning Clint’s bachelor party the day they met and she’d hated him back then. 

The plan hadn’t changed much, according to her wicked smirk. 

So now, thank god, Phil was off for a mani-pedi girls night with Natasha, Pepper, Thor, and Sam, leaving Clint to a sane night of drinking with the guys. 

Well, Stark and Rhodes were drinking. Steve was babysitting them. Bruce was watching. 

Clint was freaking out. 

“Who the hell plans a surprise wedding for someone else?” Clint asked. He was hunched over his phone, searching desperately. 

“Are you ok?” Bruce asked. He sounded far too amused. 

“I don’t have any vows,” Clint said anxiously. “Vows are a thing, right? I’m not good with words and now I’ve gotta say nice shit in front of people.”

He pulled a cocktail napkin close and started scribbling notes on it. Bruce leaned over his shoulder. 

“’ Today, as I give myself to you my mind is clear-‘ um…”

Clint whirled on him. “What?”

“Doesn’t really sound like you,” Bruce said simply. 

Clint wanted to cry. 

A tray of shot glasses landed in front of him, making Clint jump. 

“You need a drink,” Stark slurred. 

“You need to quit pretending to be drunk,” Clint snapped. He bent his head back over his phone.

“Steve, he’s being a party pooper,” Tony whined. 

Steve patted his arm. “He’s nervous. He’s getting married tomorrow.”

“I hate all of you,” Clint stated simply. He looked up long enough to grab a shot, down it, and then turn back to his searching. 

.:.

Clint’s palms were sweating. Like, gross sweating. No matter how many times he wiped his hands on his pants, his palms were still wet. He felt all together too hot, trussed up in a full tux like some dopey penguin. Don’t get him wrong, he looked damn good in the thing. But the cumber-watchya-ma-call-it was too tight around his stomach and the layers of sleeves were chafing on his arms and he couldn’t really breathe around the dark purple silk bowtie. He tugged at it with a crooked finger, trying to free up his air passages.

Natasha slapped his hand away for the tenth time in as many minutes. “If you untie that damn thing again, I will cuff your hands behind your back.” 

Clint meant to grin at her but it came out more like a nauseous grimace. He tried to wipe his hands on his pants again. 

“You need something stronger than champagne,” Natasha muttered, hands on her hips. The dress she wore was the same color as his bowtie and hugged her curves with artful folds of fabric. She reached down to hike up the hem and Clint’s brain went offline for half a second at the sight of her pale thigh and the dark lacy garter underneath. She pulled a silver flask out of the lace and raised an eyebrow at his slack-jaw expression. “You’re marrying Coulson today, eyes and tongue back in your head.”

And on any other day Clint would have made a joke about a threesome, obvious and unnecessary like most of his jokes involving sex with Nat. But he couldn’t bring himself to say it because he was getting married to Phil in less than two hours. If he opened his mouth, he was going to throw up.

Holy shit, he was getting married. He was going to walk into a church (decorated with violets and lavender and pale yellow roses and frills and ruffles and whatever else Pepper wanted), walk down the aisle, and finally get Phil to say “I do.” He’d wanted that ever since the first time he’d told Phil he loved him. 

Clint had to blink away the gray starting to take over his vision. 

Natasha immediately forced him into a chair, her nails digging into his neck as she forced his head between his knees. The stupid waist thing pressed into his stomach like it wanted to squeeze out anything that might be in there. Somehow, it helped, forced him to take deep breaths to push past it. 

“You’re already married to him,” Natasha reassured him, her voice sounding a bit fuzzy over the faint ringing in his ears. She rubbed her delicate fingers over his shoulders, pressing in to the tension she found there. “This is just a ceremony you wanted.”

“Why did I want this?” Clint asked. He sat up and gave her as pathetic a look he could manage because he was an idiot. “Seriously, why would I want this?”

“It’s not like he’s gonna say no,” Nat pointed out, scratching her nails gently over his scalp. 

“He totally could,” Clint objected, his heart beating fast and loud. “Oh god, what if he does? This is all so stupid and unnecessary and he’s gotta be fed up with me by now, I’m so fucking needy. What if he just leaves me at the alter?”

Natasha flicked his ear. “Right now, I think you’re a bigger flight risk.” 

“I’m making him go through all this shit,” Clint continued and for some reason he couldn’t get his hand to stop flapping. “I’m making him wear a tux.”

“Coulson likes dressing up, you know this, I’m pretty sure it’s his biggest kink,” Natasha commented. “The more layers, the better.”

“I think you’re projecting, please don’t, do not relate what Phil and I have to what you and Barnes like to do with your panties.”

Clint yelped when Natasha pinched his arm, honestly much harder than she needed to. With a sigh, she pulled his head to her chest and began stroking his hair. 

“I love your boobs,” Clint couldn’t help but sigh because his panic had officially broken him. Natasha took a swallow from her flask before tapping it against Clint’s cheek. 

A knock at the door preceded Teddy sticking his head into the room. “Dad, are you ready yet?”

Clint made a whimpering sound and shook his head against Natasha’s breasts. 

“Tell them we need a few more minutes,” Natasha told him. 

Teddy nodded but frowned at Clint. “Is he gonna throw up?”

“Probably,” Clint grumbled. 

“How can I be the ring bearer if you’re sick?” Teddy asked, lip quivering slightly in a pout. 

“The rings!” Clint exclaimed and it was only Natasha’s nails in the back of his skull that kept him from immediately leaping up. 

“Cap has them,” Teddy informed them. “He didn’t want them to get lost.”

“Thank you, medvedzhonok,” Natasha said, making the boy smile again. He ducked back out of the room, shutting the door softly behind him. She turned her attention back to Clint. 

“I’m going to need you to be a grown up for five minutes and put your shoes on,” Natasha told him, pulling away. Clint caught her, fists bunching in the fabric at her waist, refusing to let her go. 

“Tell me I’m an idiot,” he murmured, eyes squeezed shut. 

“You’re an absolute moron,” she responded with a faint smile. 

“I’m panicking for no reason,” Clint said. 

Natasha hmm’ed in agreement. “Phil loves you, Clint. It would be SHIELD’s worst kept secret even if he wasn’t practically shouting the fact down the halls on a daily basis.”

“He does not do that,” Clint objected, looking up at her with his chin resting on her stomach. 

“He doesn’t have to,” she amended. “He’s the only handler you’ve ever had.”

“We work well together,” Clint said with a shrug.

“Because he trusts you,” Natasha replied. “I can count on one hand how many people Phil Coulson trusts without a second thought and I wouldn’t even every finger. You’re the first name on that list.” She poked him in the forehead. 

“Why does he even put up with me?” Clint asked. He knew he was being whiney and needy but it’s not like that was anything new. 

“Guess you’ll find out in his vows,” Natasha said. 

Clint stiffened. “I don’t have my vows.”

“Breast pocket, kapusta,” Natasha reminded him affectionately. He scrambled for his pocket, pulling out the neatly folded handkerchief and disturbing the bunch of purple flowers pinned to his chest until he found the worn, folded scrap of paper. 

“It’s not like you couldn’t make them up on the spot,” Natasha muttered, rolling her eyes as she picked the hanky up from Clint’s lap. “Wouldn’t be a surprise, you improvising.”

“Hey, these are carefully chosen words from the Internet,” Clint joked and there was only a little bit of bile at the back of his throat. 

“I know you think that makes them special but it really doesn’t.” She patted his cheek and shoved the flask under his nose. “Now come on, shot, shoes, maybe a bathroom break so you don’t wet yourself in front of everyone. And just remember, Pepper will kill you if you even think about trying to sneak out the window.”

Clint nodded and threw back most of the flask, not questioning what exactly was burning down the back of his throat so long as it helped. 

.:.

“Clint is successfully in the limo and on the way over,” Pepper announced to the room at large. Phil looked over from regarding his reflection in the full-length mirror of the changing room, pausing in the act of pinning the boutonniere to his lapel. 

“Why is Tony handcuffed to your belt?” Steve asked from where he sat in a ghastly floral print armchair behind Phil. 

“Because Pepper is a funsucker,” Tony replied, tugging lightly at his bonds. 

Pepper smacked his shoulder. “I don’t need him getting tazed again for antagonizing one of the grooms.”

“I’m glad to see he’s recovered,” Phil said flatly, turning back to his reflection. 

“Everything still tastes like pennies,” Tony whined. 

“Well, maybe you’ll think twice before trying to scare a trained SHIELD agent,” Pepper chastised. 

“It was a fake kidnapping for a surprise bachelor party,” Tony defended. “Clearly he over reacted.”

“You put a bag over my head.” Phil turned a disapproving look on Tony. “You’re lucky I didn’t break your knee caps.”

Tony waved him off. “Pep, can I have my phone back, pretty please?”

“No,” she said, poking away at the tablet cradled in the crook of her arm. “I told you what would happen if you tried to call for a dove release again.”

“Doves?” Phil inquired, half worried about what the answer might be. Pepper just shook her head. 

“I’m bored,” Tony complained. 

“Teddy is six and he’s better behaved than you are,” Steve said. 

“That’s cause Teddy has a job,” Tony stated. “He’s gotta look cute and hold a pillow, that’s a lot for a kid to keep track of.”

“Your job is to not cause trouble,” Pepper informed him. 

“That’s not a job, that’s doing nothing.”

“And you’re failing at it.”

“I can keep an eye on him if you need to actually get stuff done,” Steve offered.

Every eye turned on him, incredulous eyebrows judging him quietly, even Tony. 

“You can not say no to him,” Pepper said by way of denial. “I need to make sure he doesn’t find a way to get an elephant or something.”

Tony’s face lit up, like he hadn’t thought of that yet, and Steve frowned. Before he could make some sort of protest, Darcy poked her head into the room. 

“Babe, caterer’s calling about set up,” Darcy said. She eyed Phil up and down in a way that made him feel not a little bit dirty. “Looking classy there, Coulson.”

“Thank you, sweetheart,” Pepper said while Phil frowned at his reflection, suddenly second guessing his choice in clothing. “Tell them I’ll be with them in a minute.” 

“What’s with the gross pet names?” Tony asked, looking back and forth between the two women. 

Darcy smirked, winked, and Tony’s eyes widened. 

“Oh my god, are you to dating or… you know, frick-fracking?” he demanded. 

“Frick-fracking?” Steve asked. 

Tony shrugged his shoulders at him. “I don’t know what lesbians do, they never let me watch.”

“I’ll have Darcy let you know when Clint gets here,” Pepper told Phil, ignoring whatever conversation Tony and Steve seemed to be having through facial ticks. 

“Don’t touch him, don’t talk to him, don’t let him know you have anything to do with the planning of this,” Phil ordered, trying not to glare at Darcy. 

She raised her hands innocently. “I will not screw with Birdbrain’s head today, I already promised Pep.”

“Let’s go, Tony,” Pepper said, turning to leave. 

“Wait, wait!” Tony pulled away from her and reached out for Steve. His arms extended fully as he tugged at the handcuffs, looking utterly ridiculous as he made grabby hands in Steve’s direction. Steve raised an eyebrow but took pity on him, standing up and moving into his space so he was no longer pulling on Pepper’s very nice pantsuit. Tony reached up to grab his lapels and pulled him down to smack a gross, wet kiss on his lips. 

“Ok, I’m good,” Tony announced, patting Steve’s chest. 

“Will you go make sure the florists have finished up, baby?” Pepper asked Darcy as she led Tony away. 

“Sure thing, honeybunch,” Darcy answered. 

“No, seriously, answer me, what’s going on between you two?” Tony probed. 

The door shut behind them and Coulson shook his head. “I really need new friends.”

“Tony will be thrilled to know you consider him a friend,” Steve joked. 

“Please do not tell him,” Phil said. “He’ll just try harder to make me change my mind.” 

They fell into companionable silence, as they had for most of the day after arriving at the church. Phil kept having little moments where he couldn’t believe Captain America was willing to be his best man. Best to keep his mouth shut instead of blurting something mortifyingly stupid like he had a tendency of doing around Steve.

.:.

Clint’s fingers were tingling. He’d never gotten around to asking Natasha what she had in her flask but he’d probably taken a few fortifying shots too many. He couldn’t stop shifting his weight from foot to foot, even when Natasha dug her nails into his arm out of annoyance. They stood side by side in a hall, waiting for their cue to enter the chapel. Pepper had everything planned so Phil and Clint would be entering at the same time from the sides of the church. She’d wanted to avoid any gender-biased traditions like walking down the aisle. Clint had a garter wrapped tight around his thigh anyway. Hopefully Phil would let him flick it into Stark’s face later.

In front of them, Teddy had already walked out, proudly holding up the lacy pillow. Clint had to remind him a couple of times not to grow too tall in his excitement. From the sound of things behind the closed doors, the flower puppies (100% Darcy’s idea, Clint had no idea how she’d gotten it past Pepper) had barked and yipped their way all over the church. They could still hear laughter. 

“Sounds like a lot of people,” Clint commented. His mouth felt suddenly very dry. 

“They’re all here to object,” Natasha deadpanned. “Coulson has clearly lost his mind.” 

Clint elbowed her and it said a lot that she didn’t step on his foot in retaliation. 

The usher opened the door, waved them forward, and Clint’s heart lodged itself in his throat. 

“Let’s go,” Natasha urged. She pulled him forward into the chapel, which was a good thing because Clint’s knees had locked up and there was no way he was goin to be walking out on his own. 

There were a lot of people. Most of the pews were filled and even though it was a small chapel, Clint was still surprised by the number of people willing to sit through a ceremony Clint had requested because he was an idiot. Again. 

He spotted Sam and Rhodey in the first row, standing next to Bucky, who looked uncomfortable in his suit. Bruce stood just behind them with Thor and Jane, Hill taking up the aisle seat across from them. Pepper had Stark with her, standing in the back and watching her masterpiece come together, a smile on her face and tears in her eyes. The rest of the audience was made up of SHIELD agents. Clint recognized Melinda May, those two nerds from R&D who followed Phil around everywhere like ducklings, and-

“Who invited Bobbi?!” Clint hissed into Natasha’s ear, refusing to take another step forward. Nat looked over and Bobbi waved her fingers at them, aware of their attention on her. Clint felt panic bubbling up at the sight of his ex-wife at his wedding.

And then he caught sight of Phil.

Phil walking forward with Steve just behind him. Phil looking amazing in his form fitting tux. Clint was pretty sure he was drooling but he wasn’t aware enough of his surroundings to care. Every sense he had zeroed in on Phil until his fingers twitched to run over every inch of his body. Phil was beautiful and smiling just for him and all of Clint’s worries melted away. 

The rest of the ceremony ran into a blur as soon as their hands met. Clint very nearly laughed at the sight of Fury standing at the alter, staring at them both like he hated them. More than usual. (He had an all new respect for Pepper, getting the director to officiate with only a slightly pained twitch to his eye. He definitely needed to join Stark’s new Church of Pepper.)

Clint had absolutely no idea what Fury even said until his eye turned on him and Phil gently tugged him around. 

Vows, Phil mouthed. 

“Oh, right,” Clint said out loud, causing their guests to chuckle. Phil just grinned as Clint dug out his vow from his pocket. “I wanna go first because yours are gonna be perfectly worded and punctuated and I had to look up some of this on the Internet.”

His hands shook as he looked down at his scribbled notes. He took a deep breath, looked Phil in the eye, and began. 

“I used to be afraid of falling in love, of giving so much of myself away or letting someone offer that much of themselves to me. I’d always screwed things up, how was I not gonna screw up loving someone? I did screw up loving people. But when I finally got enough sense to pull my head out of my ass, there you were. I wasn’t afraid of loving you, you wouldn’t let me. And I want to thank you every day for not letting me be afraid of the best thing to ever happen to me.”

His throat was seizing up with emotion, he had to swallow but his mouth was so dry. His eyes though, were practically flooded with moisture, threatening to spill over and make him blubber like an absolute idiot. He needed to just spit out the last of his vows. 

“And we’re definitely doing this all ass backwards,” Clint continued with a wet laugh. “I mean, first you pretended to be dead, then we got a kid, and now we’re finally doing the proper wedding thing but it would be weird if we every did anything like a normal couple, right?”

Phil’s grin grew wider as he chuckled. 

“So now, I want to tell you how much I love you. I love you enough to do anything for you, to give my life, my heart, and my soul to you. I love you enough to file paperwork properly and pretend to pay attention during debriefs. I love you enough to fight for you, and sacrifice myself for you if you’d ever let me. I miss you when we are apart, no matter if it’s just a quick milk run or pretending to be dead for a year and no, I will never let you forget. I love you enough to believe in our relationship, to stand by it through the worst of times, because you’re marrying me and there’s going to be so many worst times. But I have faith in our strength as a couple, and I swear, I will never, ever give up on us. I love enough to spend the rest of my life with you, to be there for you, whenever you need me. I never, ever want to live without you ever again. Phil Coulson, I love you and this is my promise to you, through sickness and health and all the rest of it.”

Clint felt extremely self-conscious for bearing so much of himself in so many words. He shifted on his feet but Phil’s eyes were warm and pinning him in place. There were tears in his eyes. 

“I love you too, Clint Barton,” Phil started and Clint was more than ready to be out classed, Phil was always so much better with words. “I’ve been compromised. I trust you to have my back.” 

There was a moment of expectant silence. 

“That’s it?” Clint blurted out when Phil didn’t say anything else. It pulled laughter from their audience and from Phil. 

“That’s it,” Phil responded, smirking. 

“Then by the power vested in me because I sign all of your pay checks,” Fury interrupted, “I now pronounce you married. Again. Hurry up and kiss.” 

They did to thunderous applause (actual thunder might have been involved, Thor was in the audience). Clint wrapped his arms around Phil’s waist, pulling him closer to deepen the kiss. Several people wolf whistled because they were friends with actual five year olds. 

“All right, ceremony’s over now,” Fury announced before they’d even finished. “I better not see any of your drunk asses on the news tonight.”

“Swear jar!” Teddy chimed in from where he stood next to Steve. 

Clint and Phil lead the wedding party down the aisle at Pepper’s summoning gesture. Clint’s cheeks hurt from smiling so much but he couldn’t stop. Phil’s arm was wrapped around his waist, hand pressed firmly into his hip. Clint’s own hand was trying very hard not to sneak under Phil’s jacket and into his pants. A pair of ushers opened the doors as they approached. 

“Phillip James Coulson!”

Phil froze in place at the sight of a short, very angry looking woman standing in the doorway. Her arms were crossed under her ample bosom. Behind her stood three equally pissed off younger women, one of whom looked very pregnant. A gaggle of kids and three haggard looking men flanked them. 

Phil gave an odd sort of spasm before lunging forward to grab the doors from the ushers and slamming them shut. He turned around to look at Clint with wide, frightened eyes. 

“Fuck me.” 

.:.

The reception hall was a 10-minute limo ride away from the church and Clint laughed hysterically nearly the entire way. Phil didn’t really mind, he loved Clint’s laugh, even if it was directed at him and sounded more than a little crazed. The giggling had started as soon as Phil’s family introduced themselves. The laughter hadn’t stopped since. 

“I love your mother,” Clint managed between laughing. “Who thinks to make their son get married again not five minutes after the ceremony ends?” 

“She’s never going to let me live this down,” Phil groaned. Clint dissolved into another fit of giggles.

“Fury’s face when she told him to do all over again. Oh, I really hope Nat or Darcy got it on camera, I want to frame it and put it on the mantle.”

“We don’t have a mantle,” Phil reminded him, wrapping an arm around Clint’s shoulders. “And my mother has more dirt on Fury than Hill does.” 

“Love- hic- her,” Clint stated, hiccupping even as he kept laughing. “And which sister walked you down the aisle?”

“That would be Claudia,” Phil replied. “Second oldest.” 

“She looked so disappointed to be on your arm and not Steve’s.”

“Well, Amy is the oldest and under the impression that she is not too old to give a titty twist in public.” 

Clint actually stopped breathing for a few seconds, his laughter reducing him to silent gasping. Tears ran down his face and Phil was concerned until Clint sucked in a large breath. 

“Ow. My sides hurt,” Clint whined. Phil rubbed his arm.

“I can’t imagine why,” Phil commented dryly. “You’ve only been laughing since our vows.”

“Because yours were absolutely ridiculous, you ass,” Clint said, smacking Phil’s chest with the back of his hand. “I mean, it was three sentences while I just went on and on for like five minutes. Obviously I’m the better husband.”

Phil rolled his eyes and kissed behind Clint’s ear. “Teddy was disappointed he didn’t get to carry our rings again.”

“Too bad,” Clint said. He turned in his seat to kiss Phil properly. “This ring isn’t ever coming off.” 

“Ever?” Phil asked against his lips. 

“Never ever, ever,” Clint swore, deepening the kiss with a brush of his tongue over Phil’s bottom lip. Phil moaned into his mouth and pushed him around, ready to climb into his lap. His plans of grinding against Clint were foiled by another round of giggles. 

“Your mother felt up my arm the entire time she walked me down the aisle.”

Phil groaned and sat back down. “Please don’t bring my mother into this, she’s going to be asking enough invasive questions to make me swear off sex, you don’t need to help her.”

“I’m sorry,” Clint said, his lips twitching as he tried to reign in his laughter. He pulled Phil back in by his tie. They were able to make out for a good few minutes before-

“So exactly how many kids do your sisters have?”

.:.

“Introducing, for the first time ever, Mr. and Mrs. Agent Coulson! Ouch, Jesus, Pep, I need that arm.” 

Clint rolled his eyes at Tony’s ridiculous announcement as he and Phil entered the reception hall. They made it exactly three steps in before Clint realized what exactly they’d walked in to. 

The reception was a literal circus. There were fire jugglers in the corners, trapeze artists flipping around tables, and a face painter off to the side seeing to a line of Phil’s nieces and nephews and several SHIELD agents. 

Clint wanted to punch Stark. 

“I am so sorry,” Pepper said as soon as they got close. “Someone snuck him a phone, he did this all before I could stop him.”

“Steve?” Clint asked around grit teeth. 

Pepper shook her head. “Jane. He took advantage of the ‘science bros’ thing, she knows better now.”

Phil was laughing anyway like the traitor he was. 

Pepper led them to their seats at the head table. Steve and Stark were already seated, plates of food from the buffet line in front of them, Stark pawing at Steve’s arm. 

“You’re not sitting with us,” Clint announced, pointing at Stark before taking his own seat. 

“Rude,” Tony said, mock offended. “No gratitude for the man paying for this fabulous reception.”

“Wildly inappropriate is more accurate,” Clint muttered. 

“Dad! Pops!” Teddy came running up to them, dragging Darcy behind him. His face was covered by a sparkling green dragon painting. Darcy had a violently pink fairy on her cheek. “There’s an elephant outside!”

Everyone turned to glare at Tony. “What?”

“I’ll get the food if you get the alcohol,” Phil suggested, patting Clint’s stiff shoulders. “Come on, Teddy.” 

The open bar would be Stark’s only saving grace that night. 

Phil’s mother managed to squeeze herself into the head table, pulling up a seat between Clint and Natasha. Teddy sat in her lap, his plate covered in mac and cheese. Phil had added broccoli to the unhealthy mess but Ma Coulson kept sneaking florets off the plate. 

“Ma,” Phil complained, not fooled in the slightest. “He needs to eat something healthy.”

“Broccoli’s gross,” Teddy stated around a large mouthful of bread. 

“Chew with your mouth closed, Teddy dear,” Ma Coulson said. “And you better be careful, Phillip. If you make him eat things he doesn’t like, he’ll grow up to resent you and forget to invite you to his wedding. Or that he isn’t actually dead.”

“Ma, please?” Phil begged and Clint bit his lip to keep from laughing as Teddy nodded in agreement. 

“So, Steven,” Ma Coulson said, ignoring her son as he took a healthy swallow of scotch. “I wanted to thank you for being my son’s best man.” 

“It was my pleasure,” Steve said with a genuine smile. 

“You know, when Phil was 9, he came up to me and said he was going to going to marry Captain America and there was no girl in the world who could change his mind.”

Phil dropped his head to Clint’s shoulder with a groan. 

“It’s a good thing I’m not a girl then,” Clint commented, wildly amused. 

“Well, I had hoped there would be another Mrs. Coulson in the world so I could pass on the title and just be Grams.” She sighed wistfully. 

“Are you taking Agent’s last name?” Tony asked, turning his face away from where he’d been working a hickey into Steve’s neck. “Clint Coulson?”

Everyone at the table grimaced. 

“I think we’re good as is,” Clint said. Phil kissed him. 

.:.

As they got ready to leave, several hours and an elephant ride later, Ma Coulson grabbed Clint’s wrist and pulled him into a bone-crushing hug. 

“I meant what I said at the church, sweetie,” she told him, planting a kiss on his cheek. 

Clint smiled down at her. “Thank you.”

Phil looked at him curiously as they climbed into the limo. “What was that about?”

“Your mom wants me to consider myself one of her kids,” Clint answered with a faint smile. He leaned into Phil’s side. “That’s why she wanted to walk me down the aisle instead of you. She knew I don’t have anyone that counts as a proper parental figure.” 

“Ma’s a giver like that,” Phil said. 

“She also promised to give me all of your baby photos if I get you to go Thanksgiving at her house.” Clint grinned. 

“Absolutely not,” Phil stated firmly. 

“Oh, I bet I can convince you,” Clint said smugly. 

“Really?”

“Sure. I mean, after all, we’re going to spend an entire week on Stark’s private island, no one else there, no reason to ever wear pants…” Clint kissed along Phil’s jaw. “And I want to have so much sex, Stark notices it the next time he’s there.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this wraps things up, folks, and sets the stage for so much more. I started this story almost a year ago and it's taken too damn long to get it out. Thank you so much for reading and commenting and enjoying!
> 
> And please, fair readers, do not worry. There will be more! I have so many plans, more than I ever wanted, because my friend, whom all this is written for, is very needy and continually demands more from me. Look forward to two new stories in this verse: Turn of Phrase, which will feature the life and times of Teddy everyone has been so eager for, and Tony Stark's Home for Wayward Orphans, which is going to be very explicitly rated for reasons. You'll love them, I promise.
> 
> So once again, thank you so much for sticking around and I promise to be better about updating in the future!


End file.
